We have conducted a study on benefits of article marketing via various methods including paid and free.
Please check out our Ezine Articles free Submission Case Study to see the benefits of submitting to a free article directory.
We have also conducted an iSnare Article Marketing Case Study to show the differences between paid article submission and free submission.

I think the power in article marketing is in the traffic it drives as well as the backlinks. The articles may end up in the supps. But you only need one big site with tens of thousands of visitors a day to pick up your article and use it on their site as content with your author bio box to drive large amounts of visitors to your author box links daily.
‘ shoot a few links at each article ‘
This is a good idea, linking to your article on the main article directories site with a few backlinks is always good to keep your article alive on the directory site. Therefore giving your article more chance of being found by publishers looking for that type of content within article directories.

The object of the report was to follow the progress of a press report in the google index after submitted to Webwire press release site. It was not really about trying to outrank high PR websites. In my opinion for your press release to be listed for the required search term in Googles index on the first page within 2 days is good. Its unlikely to outrank cj in that experiment obviously but to get listed on the first Google results for the longtail keyword term is worthwhile.

The only obstacle one has to face in starting and developing an online business is themselves. Self discipline is key… in anything for that matter.
One would also want the right knowledge from the right people in order to succeed online. The best stories are from those who have been there already.