Well there is no point in arguing about something that you don't know
let me give you an example, you say paid links or reviews are bad and google will and punish you for this right? ok now heres scenerio mayb you could shed some light on,
Ok now you say you dont buy links, ok now the only options you've to build links is to do reciprocal linking, submit articles and then link bait. In all cases you are getting links back to your website, now how in the world would google know that you have not paid any money for those links? and you are nobel guy or company? that google should not penalize?
On the other hand if you buy links or reviews, how in the world would a bot know that you;ve paid for those untill or unless that site clearly says these are paid links?
Its all an urban legend, you should get links just stick to your industry and dont go for sites that are known and already got penalized for doing so.
We are also running a links selling website for years so i know ins and outs of all the myths and truths out there.
Anyway i am out of this thread.
good luck to you all