Honest thoughts needed about link building / removal.

[Coraltoes77]

Wow, Dr Pete replied to my question! Thank you - and, actually, thanks to everyone who took the time to post.

UPDATE...

Since my last posts, I have actually moved forward a little. I did have an audit undertaken by someone that specialises in traffic drops. It transpires that it's not very clear cut - definitely not entirely a clear link-based penalty situation - and the indications are that it's probably Panda with a touch of Penguin. Upshot is, I'm having the site redesigned to minimise duplicate/thin content issues (and generally improve the user experience) and I have engaged someone to do the link removal outreach/disavow. Still early days, but now I have some kind of game plan, I feel a little more optimistic.

TBH, I'm still a little wary about the link removal/disavowal process, but we'll see... I had such varying quotes for this work, it's crazy.

And, still need to crystallise in my mind how I'm going to earn new links.