Page Rank - Can We Stop Relying On It Already?

Page rank, page rank, page rank. It is getting tiresome to keep hearing about it. Unfortunately we live under the umbrella of Google and we have to follow their rules. Andy Beard just wrote about an article called Digg Favorites Slapped By Google. It lists several websites that, evidently, got penalized by Google for some reason or another. Paid links missing the "no follow" attribute? Who know what's behind the "best" algo in the world. Most of the sites that Andy lists are very good sites with reliable content. I guess it's a big mystery.

After all the websites penalties have been dished out for whatever reason, the average decrease in page rank was 3 points. That is a pretty big jump for someone with a PR of 6. The least shocking was John Chow getting hit again. He has been on the outs will Google for some time now. I happen to love his blog and I know he has some serious links coming in. I don't think that his traffic will suffer due to his decrease in page rank. Want to know how I know? Uhh, 16,000 RSS subscriber and growing is a good indication.

Obviously, Google still has a page rank of 10 and I have seen a bunch of PR 8 sites and a few with a PR of 9. But I ask you, have you ever seen a PR 10 website other than Google? I don't ever remember seeing one.

Is this an unobtainable number? Are they reconfiguring the web? Is a revolt on the horizon? Conspiracy theorists unite?

Just kidding. Seriously though, has anyone ever seen a PR 10 site. If you have let me know.