Don't you think that internet resources are getting worse worse, with massive link exchanging as a part of internet marketing. Google has to do something with it.
Now if the other engines would just follow suit, we'd be in great shape. The problem is that, as long as there are idiots out there promoting mass link exchange as a viable traffic generating mechanism, there will be people trying to come up with new ways to game the search engines in the same manner.
Link Exchanges are a waste of time depending on how you do it. I find that for one of my sites it works well, but then for another it doesn't work and is a waste of my time.