Pros and Cons of Backlinks: Not Worth the Effort Anymore?

Writers or web content publishers who are also search engine marketers often tout the value of backlinking their own work.  I'm a maverick.  I think backlinks created for "link juice" are pretty valueless and getting cheaper daily.  I write web content for revenue share, and I don't systematically backlink, and my articles, many of them hosted at HubPages, don't do badly at all.  And I think I'm not alone.  I know, I know.  A lot of people swear by creating strategic backlinks.  But there's another group of people that don't touch the things and let the backlinks develop organically.  And it's looking like that may be okay.

Easy To Use CMS, Where Are You? Talk About a Brilliant Business Startup Idea

In my search for an easy to use CMS, I've been following a thread on the Webmasterworld forums on the best content management systems.  I've been using Wordpress to create my websites, and though I like it well enough, it's not exactly what I'd call easy.  I've been looking for an easy way to build a site for a long time, and despite the truly educational threads on Webmasterworld, I'm not getting anywhere.  Anybody looking for brilliant startup ideas?  Matt Cutts from Google has some ideas, or maybe you can tackle my problem.

My problem is this.  To create a website from scratch, a non-techie like me can use a supposedly easy-to-use content management system such as Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, or the less well-known ones like ModX, Textpattern, and, oh, a lot more.  Or you can use a WYSIWYG HTML editor (what-you-see-is-what-you-get, referring to the fact that you can use it like word processing software to format your web page) such as Dreamweaver, Frontpage, KompoZer, and oh, so many more.  Or you can code your own CSS, HTML, PHP, or whatever using a text editor.  Or you can use pricey and much-promoted plans like the very expensive Site Build It.  Or you can pop up a website on someone else's pages, as with Google Sites or Blogger or Yahoo! SiteBuilder, or even publish on Hubpages, eHow, and other content sites.