I suppose I'll add my two cents:
I primarily manage one website. 99 indexed pages with 1K+ high quality original content.
My link building has consisted of PR, directories, P(rivate)BN, aggressive white hat and guest blog posts on patch/onmogul/wn etc. So everything under the sun except P(ublic)BN.
My rankings have been wild - to say the least. Here's one thing I have noticed:
"Blue Widgets" little change
"Cheap Blue Widgets" - roller coaster
"Buy Blue Widgets Online" - roller coaster
The longer tail versions have seen more movement, as have pages with links pointing at them.
Interesting data points: a word I was penalized for in December has been reappearing here and there (aggressive anchor)
I uploaded a new site yesterday. Uploaded a bit of content (600 words x5 pages). Entered the site into my rank tracker and BAM its ranking from 60-150 for competitive keywords that would usually be sandboxed. (Some say the sandbox exists, others say YOURE AN IDIOT AND DONT KNOW SEO IF YOU THINK IT DOES), but the point is these are terms I cant break the second page on. I'll check my ranker again tonight and see what happens.
My thoughts? It has to be link related (duh). Google primarily uses links to value websites and the values are changing, ergo links are being treated differently, but nobody really knows how as of right now. Things will need to settle down a bit. I have one competitor who isn't budging from #1 across 100 KWs. He has a killer network I've never been able to find and an aged site of 9 years. Maybe we should all analyze him and we'll know about Fred...