Thanks for the feedback and (probably well deserved) slap in the face. Tp you this may be a bleeding obvious question to some others, who are still learning then feedback is great.
I'm getting that there is the Quantity vs Quality issue here. Having had little experience of building an SEO link strategy, I am plainly not aware of how fast to go or the techniques of getting good links.
I see (using open site explorer) my competitors have 10's of thousands of external links, so even if I kept at this rate it would be many years before I caught up. That is based on my current understanding, so how do I get to those levels, even if it is over a year or two?