Op's theory is way off. Please don't mislead newbies and spread this information as a fact. At least let people know that it's just a theory.
The most powerful links I have get 0 traffic and they give the biggest boost to my serp rankings.
On the other hand, I have completely white hat sites that get real traffic links from other bloggers and this site is so hard to rank, even with 1000's of words of unique sharable content. I do not do any regular link building on this site. Everything is relationship building. So if this theory was true, I should be seeing massive rankings but it's nothing compared to my other sites.
I understand there might be some seo benefits of a link that also sends traffic (possible due to other factors), but other than that, this statement you made is complete bs.