Some directories will give you traffic. You mentioned businessseek, I get a few referrals from there. I'm trying to generate more traffic for people who list sites by giving submitters the opportunity to have full page descriptions with natural linking inside the body of the text.
Actually directories were used when search engine wasn't invented. But these are now used to boost the site to search engine. These can't directly give traffic. But it gives the backlinks.
if you do pay for a premium listing on a directory however you will get a high PR link rathet than a Pr0 link in the catergories.