Hi Ryan.
Glad to hear someone talking sense! In researching sites' linking patterns I have also often come across sites that are linked to that should really have no logical relationship back to the site in question, yet the link still counts. Sometimes these are from blog sites that seo companies have set up themselves, that have little content, and not terribly interesting content either, yet this still seems to work in 2011, which is baffling.
I agree that one day this will all be devalued, but you wonder when.