I disagree with the first point. Backlinks are important, but not as important as you portray. They are not a large factor in the algorithm. They relate strongly to PR, but not so strongly to SERPs. On page optimisation and content should be the priority there.
Backlinks play major role in SERPs.. I havent used my main keyword once on my homepage still i rank #7 on that keyword ( thats just because of Backlinks and anchors i used in backlinks ) its very imp update of google on 27th Aug.. I suggest you try out taking backlinks on 1 single keyword as ur anchor and than you see your results after a week .. I am sure u'll be amazed to see the results
I don't disagree that backlinks are important, but they are important for PR. Link popularity plays a large part, I agree, but I also think that people are starting to forget about other important things in their favour...
Backlinks using your keyword in the achor text or image alt text are the largest part of the ranking algorithm. Look up Miserable Failure in Google
Crap. That is an extreme example. I have a site that ranks 2nd in Google for a specific keyword, and has very few backlinks. Absolutely none of them use that keyword in their anchor text. That site ranks purely thanks to the optimisation of it's content.
Blah - so your saying, a new MFA website with no inbound links, and without one of your friends knowing the URL exsists? Maybe it exsists but no one else can see it. You know what i mean
I think that Google should place more importance on content, but it really is all about the links. Almost ALL about the links; I think the Failure example proves that.