buffer site = site between your money site and the links/spam/properties that you are using to promote it.... That way, in theory, you aren't doing anything directly to your money site that may negatively affect it.....
Link Pyramids, etc.? Check out Michael Campbell's Revenge of the Mini-Net - a la 2002 or so... It's not exact, but you can get some good info out of it. I think you can get it free now for signing up for his e-mail list, but used to sell for $97. Leslie Rhode used to have a doc called Dynamic Linking about the same time, both are pretty good introductory linking references/introductions.... Again, not EXACTLY link wheel/pyramid, but definitely good resources for linking. Lynus Rylander also released a rehash of it a year or two ago, about link wheels, etc. but like most people above....it's pretty self explanatory......bust out MindJet, Visio, or something else, and draw out a wheel, and/or pyramid and then get after it....
Really depends what you are trying to do, what you're trying to do, etc. More difficult the niche or keywords, the more things you need to get right, but MOST issues are a linking problem - either the addition or subtraction thereof.... in most cases, addition, but not stupidly either. Just because you can't, doesn't mean you SHOULD.... 2.5 million xrumer links to a local auto dealership, you should be shot... Use common sense, see what is getting other people there, and then bang it out. The more wholly you can control your environment, the better... The more you can automate the better. The less it LOOKS controlled and automated, the better.... Period. Anchor text matters most, you can rank blank pages, totally off topic pages, and basically whatever the hell you want with the right number of links, the right anchor text, and within reason again.... You don't want 100% anchor text density - while that works, I've seen it sink some huge sites, one client from 70k/uniques/day to 50k/uniques/day, to just over 20k uniques a day over the past 2 months..... What works in one situation, may not work in another, and you pretty much need to get a feel for it...