Kharm
When and if you are doing spun content, you should know that, yes, Google knows that people are creating spun content. Since the beginning of search they have been working to figure out ways to determine what to do with these kind of tactics.
There are a number of factors that will or could influence whether this is successful:
- Readability of the content
- Location where the Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 links are coming from
- Link velocity, which triggers Google algorithm thresholds to determine if you site deserves an update
- Authority of the link location
- Uniqueness of content
I guess I could go on, but to get to the heart of the matter, you should consider that Google is probably already creating tools to measure what spam looks like and how it is structured. While others may not agree, you should take a longer term approach and make your spun content more original. The cost for rewrites these days, where individuals and companies guarantee "copyscape" free, are pretty vast, so no shortage of low cost content creation there.
Additionally, high quality spun articles are also available almost anywhere. Check out the BHW Services area or Freelance area, if interested.
The flip side, if you consider your sites throwaway, that they will be live for 1 year and dead the next, then tactics like you describe may work very well.
Heres an interesting on the state of content marketing,
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-state-of-content-marketing
Here is another one on how Google identifies spam with Penguin,
http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/the-penguin-update-how-google-identifies-spam
Hope this is of some use to you,
Shawn