I decided to answer some of your questions from a seller's perspective.
How do you find a company or a person that actually knows what they are doing. I have spoken with companies ranging from a few hundred a month to thousands of dollars a month. Every damn one of them has the exact same presentation. They never have a real plan. They just say, "oh, we'll get you good quality links through good content." No one says what that is, how they'll do it, how long it will take ect...
Most SEO providers have a real "plan" XX amount of web 2.0,XX amount of press releases per month for a certain amount of months. I can GUARANTEE that they have a plan to build certain amount and certain type of links. What they CANNOT tell you is how long it will take you to rank. NO SEO provider can tell you this. It is one of the most difficult things to predict.
It makes me wonder, why is SEO even charged on a monthly basis?
That's the cycle of the moon, what does it have to do with anything. I've asked just about every provider to give me a basic timeline of what to expect. All I'd like to see is them to actually analyze the site, point out the weaknesses on-page, what they will do to fix that, how long it will take. Then plans for creating content, distributing it in terms of campaigns, blog posts, videos, infographics whatever.
Also, SEO should be on a monthly basis. Why? You arent the only one who has hired a SEO agency. Your competitors are doing SEO too. If you dont keep it constant you will fall from your position.
What you are talking about here is a boutique SEO service. You want someone to work with you. You want SEO consulatation and advice along with laser targetted help. Purchasing a simple link package wont cut it. My clients pay XXXX/month for this. Again, it is not cheap as you are taking advice and help from an experienced person and not some random outsourcer from a 3rd world country.
Is it too much to ask for someone to tell me what they are going to do and why? In any other industry in the world, an expert charging hundreds of dollars an hour, should have enough grasp on their field to be able to have a plan, why that plan is the best option, and what kind of results to expect from it. Even if the plan was fully implemented and was a complete flop, I'd understand. But just writing big check each month and being told that it might take a year for there to be any real progress seems like a great fleece.
Its not too much to ask. There are plenty of providers who are happy to do a full disclosure. You can sign and agreement that you will not leave the provider and attempt to duplicate the plan. As long as a contract is set I dont think there is a problem with that. Again, no one can guarantee you positions. They can say for eg that you will see improvement within 1 week as the links get indexed or something of that sort.
Also, is it wrong to think that slow link building that takes months to gain any momentum probably have no real value today or in the future. In my mind, it's obvious google is pushing fresh new content to the first page. The boston marathon is a good example of this: Monday morning, if you searched for boston marathon, you would have got all kinds of info on the race. Yet, Monday afternoon, the front page is full of discussions and news articles only an hour or two old. While I don't expect an SEO company to launch me to the first page overnight, doesn't it make sense that if google doesn't see value in your link/content the first day it's published, then they likely aren't going to see it valuable a month from now, a year from now, etc?
You are getting it wrong. What SEO providers are talking about is called indexing. A link has value today or tommorow. It doesnt ordinarily lose value unless penalized. You tell me. If you suddenly had a burst of 10000 links. Wouldnt it look like you are trying to mainpulate the serps. It would easily give you a penalty and destroy whatever rankings you had. If you website is aged then you can link build faster than if it is new.
I'd love to be able to do it myself, but my business is already too big for me to handle on my own, and dedicating even more time to SEO work isn't going to be possible. So how can I find someone who is actually capable of running an SEO/IM campaign in a manner that would be somewhat accountable for the money spent?
If you dont hire someone to do it for you expect to spend hundreds of hours managing your campaign. You can talk it out discuss budget and requirements. I am sure you will find MANY capable providers.
Ask them what they plan to do. Write down a contract saying you will not duplicate the campaign for yourself. I am sure that any SEO provider is willing to comply with your requirements if a contract is in place.
