I think I agree on both sides. When several years ago, it seemed to me that higher page rank did matter in great deal when it comes to search engin result page. My site's page rank went form 3 to 4, I had Unique vistors more than 3 times and so did the customers back then, but this update, I had same thing happened, page rank 3 to 4 but nothing has really changed... (dann it! ) Like some of you says, Google's page rank is one of their adver.. Nevertheless, I think if one had done SEO right, I think higher page rank will help as well. So, SEO is much more important for these years.
gah i wish Alexa kept track of subdomains better. I can't use Alexa very well because of that, and PR isn't too great either.
Yes. I agree with you. PR is useless now a days... I'm not satisfied with the last update like many others...