SEO is D.E.A.D!!
Okay, now we have lost the few who don't belong in IM and jump from one bandwagon to the next - let me explain my thoughts on SEO.
On page SEO is easy, fill your site full of useful content. Complete title meta tags, H1 tags and label all images - thats that taken care of. Well, the basics anyway. Offsite is where it gets interesting.
As you rightly say the tools which are now available make the pace and which links can be built could give poor sites an advantage. Search engines are wise to this though, links have to be built randomly. Tools don't do this. When creating your links make them random from different platforms and MOST IMPORTANTLY be consistant. Don't build 70 in a day then nothing for the next week, build 10 per day. This will have a much stronger impact. Again, tools don't do this.
So there is a part for SEO and it doesn't involve tools.
ps. SE bots will be taking more notice of social signals, so build links here too. Twitter, Digg etc. but remember to make it random.
SEO is EVOLVING