Improving Click Trough Rates on Articles - Two Types of Internet Browsers

I have used Ezine articles a lot in the past, but I'm looking at trying different directories for a few reasons. I've had some articles get TONS of views on Ezine without much backlinking, but that's the exception in my case. This is particularly true for very competetive niches were my article will get pushed down fast unless it gets natural backlinks or you create them.

I've been doing some SEO writing for a SEO company and they had an interesting comment, that I really should have thought about:

In general, there are two types of internet browses - Those that take on quick look and then move on and those that read everything.

So the SEO company always used a tactic in their articles with one link in the first paragraph (above the fold) and one link in the last paragraph.

Since I started doing this on GoArticles, ArticlesBase etc, I'm actually seeing traffic from them without backlinking, something I've never really had much of before.

That's a serious disadvantage with Ezine articles in my opinion. Also add the fact that with other directories you can add affiliate links in your article AND backlinks to your site, thus catering to BOTH types of visitors.

I've also noticed that the gap in views between Ezine and the other articles are not that large in the long term. Ezine gets a decent views when the article first goes live, but over a few months, there's not that big a difference in views in my experience (again assuming no backlinking).

Is Ezinearticles really that much better considering this?