Like I always say, build your house well, even if it is in the words, the world will make a pathway to you doorstep. Search engines are smarter these days, and they will reward quality without fail!
Google does like new content and it is very good at detecting spun articles nowadays. I find though, if I spin at sentence level I get better results. Ruth
You are so right and the old tried and true methods of writing articles still works to get traffic. Google has made is a bit more difficulty to rank your articles, but they still offer a good source of traffic.