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Agreed. I believe it is important to have a "natural" link scheme in order to rank well. Sites that only receive but don't give might look unnatural. There must be some kind of "reward" in Google's algorithm for sites that link out to relevant, quality resources.

Links from content area seem to be a lot more potent. If you're looking to boost your rankings through internal linking I would find editorial links to be the right way to go if possible. One tip I guess would be to look at preventing double links to same page. For example link from footer goes to same page as link main nav, sidebar and content area.