Typically you can trust that gut feeling that says, if it doesn't sound right, it probably isn't.

My guess is that this firm has a flat rate that they charge and they guarantee x number of links built per month.  I'd shy away from a strategy like that.

I don't feel that you can say all link directories are bad, but I wouldn't spend much, if any, time building links in that manner.  Not sure how much you are paying for their services, but I'd probably take the $200-$400 a month and hire some content creators, a social media manager, or something that has more value.

I don't know of any case studies, but I remembered reading a couple posts about H1's a couple months back: http://www.seomoz.org/q/multiple-h1-tags-on-same-page

and another from earlier in the year: http://www.seomoz.org/q/one-h1-tag-dead-long-live-multiple-h1-tags

Sorry Eran, I'll try to address this more specifically:

1. As part of their plan they want to submit our site to a large list of link directories (First red flag),
2. and we're not sure if that's a good option (trust your gut).
3. As far as we know, those directories have been ineffective for a long time now (correct)
4. and we're wondering if there is the chance of getting penalized by google (small chance)
5. When I asked the agency their opinion about that, they gave me the following answer -
6. Updated and optimized by us - We are partnered with these sites and control quality of these sites. (second red flag)
7. Unique Class C IP address - Links from unique Referring Class C IP plays a very important role in SEO. (third red flag, trying to game the system is never good.  You'll eventually get caught.)
8. Powered by high PR backlinks (I love buzzwords)
9. Domain Authority (DA) Score of over 20 (Buzzwords are often code for, "as management, I'm trying to sound like I know what I'm talking about and I hope you can't see through me")
10. These directories are well categorized. (So are grocery stores...so what?)

So they actually control those directories themselves, which we think is even worse (it is). I'm wondering what does the Moz community think about link directory submission (sorry, I'm not the community, just a member of it so I can't speak for all of them) - is there still something to be gained there (not really), is there any risk involved (very little), etc (not really sure what you are looking for specifically here, but hope my answers help.)

I'm not sure if you are referencing SEO in this post, but here's the breakdown from my experience (Several years in the GIS realm)

KMZ when you have a lot of markers in the map making the file size is large and you know the end user will use a Google product to read it.

KML if you are needing to read the file with a program outside of Google due to incompatibility issues with the KMZ format in other programs.

From the testing I have done here are my findings specific to your questions:

1. Age - Not much of a factor.  In fact, I have found that product listings seem to like fresh content.

2. Click Rate - Haven't seen much affect over the 3 sites I run.

3. Overall Quality - BINGO. The quality and quantity of data in your feed is the number 1 thing that I have found truly affects.

4.  Bounce Rate - My bounce rate is pretty low when getting people from product feeds for all my sites, so I can't give feedback if a high bounce rate affects.  I will say that product feed listings is one of the best sources of converting traffic for me though.

5.  Diversity of review sources - This is probably the second biggest factor I have seen combined with #6 Google Checkout reviews.  The more good reviews you have the better your product listings seem to do.

6.  Company location in Google Local - Sorry can't give feedback here.  Location doesn't matter in my niches.

Lastly, I just want to add that you want to make sure that you have data in every field possible.  SKU and other product numbers are very big ones as they help you to rank with the big box boys on products that have several sellers.  Provide something to your customers that they can't, and you'll find it helps a lot.

I'm looking for some second opinions on this one.  In talking with another SEO, he is of the opinion that if my company name is two words like Crazy Man, I should write some news release that have my brand combined as Crazyman because it is a variant of the brand name.  He claims that Google does not look at my brand as Crazy Man, but as one word and in Google's mind Crazyman as one word is my brand.

What do you all think?

#3 is the most obvious choice to implement.

All joking aside, I use to run a web design business and the majority of links I had were footer, site wide links.  I still have my site up even though I do very little anymore and haven't focused on any SEO for the site in a long, long time.  After the Penguin/Panda hype, I jumped from page 2 to top 3 consistently for keywords I was once targeting.

I don't know if it was just that my competitors had spammy link profiles or what, but for me in this case site wide footer links seemed to be all I needed.  Take it for what you will.

The first thing to remember is that Google will treat the subdomain as a completely different website.  So if you want Google to view your subdomain as it's own site, yes it will bring benefit.  If you are looking for your website to have relevance to the keyword on the domain.com site, then create some content that is relevant to the keyword and put it in a page on the domain - domain.com/page.

In case you aren't sure what EMD means - Exact Match Domain.

I personally would go with #1.  Definitely not #4, you never want special characters in the URL.  The reason I say number 1 is because it separates the 1 from the 2 in your 1/2.  #2 could be confused for a 12ct diamond earring, WOW.  #3 I typically avoid underscores in all URLs.

To sum up my choice is #1.  Looks cleanest and when you optimize your page with the 1/2 ct wording, Google is smart enough to see that.  Overall, it won't probably make a huge difference in the end.