I ran an experiment a while back and on random keywords quite often the Wiki page would come up top or near the top, and dozens of others. Rarely, very rarely, would there be any DMOZ results in the first 10 pages of results. For certain things, such as finding unique resources on some serious health conditions, DMOZ is still king. But generally it is very much hit and miss with no consistency and increasingly more miss than hit. For example, many North American travel services categories are 80% or more comprised of non-qualifying travel affiliates. So even if you know DMOZ exists, and find the right category, in many cases it does not deliver what it is supposed to promise - original sites with no spam.
Just as a curiosity, did you by any chance see the Google directory along the way? It has been my experience of late that the Google directory shows in search now in place of DMOZ. A rose by any other name?
I don't run into the Google Directory in my searches either. In fact, it seems to me the Google Directory is being quietly shuffled out the back door into the mother-in-law suite in the back yard where it will be allowed to pass away quietly without disturbing the party people in the main house.
Guess it depends on the individual search. I run into the Google directory by the second page of almost every search I do.
Sorry minstrel, I don't really have time to search my history through all my recent google searches, but here are a couple that I did find quickly. Google directory is in position 11. First link at the top of page 2 searching for "novelty products". http://www.google.com/search?q=nove...g.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=UJ4&start=10&sa=N Then search for "kitchenware mail order catalogs". Google directory is in position 16 on page 2. http://www.google.com/search?q=kitc...&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&start=10&sa=N Then on page 3 of the same search. DMOZ is in position 22 and again Google directory in position 30. Searching "kitchen products and utensils" Dmoz is in position 17 on page 2. http://www.google.com/search?q=kitc...&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&start=10&sa=N Page 3 of the same search with DMOZ in position 26, but no Google directory yet for this one. http://www.google.com/search?q=kitc...&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&start=20&sa=N
I guess it is search term dependent. I conducted several queries on diverse topics, up to about page 5 (standard 10 results per page). I saw Wikipedia for several searches on page 1. To my surprise, I even found a few DMOZ listing on pages 2-5. I didn't see a single Google Directory listing anywhere.
Well, I think you may have hit on the key for the most part. Men tend to search for topics, and women tend to search for products. There's no wonder that so many commercial site owners think it is so darn important to be listed. And from my experience in some obscure cases I believe it can help to a certain extent, but certainly not enough to obsess over it.