Here is an update of my efforts so far to find out out what happened and how to fix two of my banned money sites. I used various tools, some public and some private to find a list of the following:
**Some notes: **
- My sites that were heavily linked were penalized at the same time. My sites that were not linked together as much were not.
- The entire site was not penalized, only the very important key phrases, the type one might spend money on.
**I ran tools to find: **
- Banned links
- Not indexed links
- Use of keyword anchor text as a percentage of overall anchor text
After I "married" those lists..I began a process of link removal request especially for the overuse of the same three keyphrases which resulted, frankly, from not monitoring the efforts of one of one of subcontracted partners.
I created different link removal email request templates for the different kind of links after a few really angry replys. The email templates were for:
- Blog comments
- Private article sites
- Mass release articles sites
- Regular old links
Note: I sorted these by IP. When i found tons of links for the same IP I often offered money to rid myself of the links.
Two months later I have had 175 of about 500 bad links removed. I have not had the penalty lifted nor have i submitted it to Google. I dont plan to. Some mistakes were made, I am making huge efforts to take away the bad (these sites are from 1996 to 2008 .. SO..somethings can no be undone.
My current strategy is to make more good to dilute the bad. Like creative cooking. 
Also, ofcourse I have started a new dish for dinner that might end up being what is served. No telling how long the others have to sit on the stove before its eatable
