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Creating great linkbait is kind of like being a great investor.  If someone knows how to get rich through investments, they are not going to waste their time making other people rich, they are going to invest their own money and make themselves rich.  Similarly, the people who can write and create the best linkbait are not typically available to do it cheaply for someone else.  Instead, you get stuck with a second string freelancer who ends up doing a bad job for you, more harm than good.  Of course, if you hire a superstar and pay them very well, then you might in fact have a great experience.

My first career was as a traditional public relations guy (press secretary for a congressman), and I continue to use press releases now that I am dedicated on SEO, and they work great when done correctly.

As others have already said, that means: (1) you need to make sure you are announcing something newsworthy, and (2) you will only have good results if reporters or bloggers write about your press release on their own website.  Press release distribution platforms are not valuable, in my opinion.  So in addition to ONLY writing press releases when you have something newsworthy to announce, and in addition to writing very well-written press releases, you'll also need to follow up personally with lots of targeted reporters and bloggers if you hope to get a lot of bang out of press releases.

It's not easy, but it is a great way to generate high quality 'editorial links' from trusted domains, so I think it will actually become more and more important in the future.

There is no question that Google Places (which I believe is now formally called "Google+ Local" pages) are being pushed hard by Google, so I expect to see the trend continue to see these pages rise higher and higher in the rankings. However, could you be more specific about which terms your referring to?  I'm assuming that you are referring to "branded" or "name queries" that are now triggering a Google Places page instead of the original organic listing.  In that case, my recommendation would be that they make sure they have 'claimed' their Google Places (Google+ Local) page, and, once claimed, optimize that result for conversions as best as possible.  You can supplement a Google+ Local page in lots of ways by adding information, links, photos, etc., so it hopefully isn't a huge problem if these pages become more and more prominent, which I personally expect to happen.

Thanks Chris -- yes, you nailed it.  I have seen this strategy used lots of times, but it just occurred to me today that it was probably a mistake.

When a newspaper article or magazine article writes a story about your company, some people like seem to immediately write blog posts about the press hit, and then in the blog post they link to the press hit.  Other businesses have entire "In the News" sections in which they post links to news stories that reference or link to the company.  Does this in any way hinder or the cancel out the link juice that should come from the original inbound link by making it look like a link trade or link swap, or for any other reason?  Just curious if anyone has any thoughts on this...Thanks.