A competitor of mine is a heavy user of Sick Submitter.
I have been tracking his site for a while (as it is in direct competition with mine) and it has been in and out of the sandbox a few times due to his shenanigans, but now it seems to be ranking quite solidly.
All he has really done is Sick and some press releases, so yeah, it still works.
I think most stuff still works, its just that Google are more sensitive to link building now and filter (sandbox / penalise) sites a lot more easily and for a lot longer, however these are auto filters (not manual) and they do expire.
Sick is cheap and versatile, an ideal choice if you are starting out.
There are discount codes for sick in at least one forum where you can get it for $12 pm.