Articles Base really PR 0

Kind of ... there's something you weren't aware of, anyway (like many people, by the way): it's not just Articles Base: all article directory articles are published on PR-0 pages, regardless of the page rank of the directories' home pages.

Articles in directories go on new pages, and a new page is a new page. All new pages on any website (yours, mine, or an article directory's) are PR-0.

Nobody is born understanding the ins and outs of article directory marketing, and no new web page is born with any acquired page rank.

Many of us here are making very good livings from article marketing, and are building growing businesses based on residual income from work already done. But I think your question actually relates not to "article marketing" but to "article directory marketing", about which opinions differ. Many (most?) of the successful article marketers would agree quite strongly with your inference that that isn't worth bothering with, no. Especially these days. Article directory backlinks have only minuscule value, and traffic one wants coming to one's own site, clearly, rather than to an article directory.

In my opinion, depending on article directories as a source of traffic and/or backlinks is a thankless task, and unlikely indeed to lead to making a living.

Explained in more detail here (especially the later part of the post).

I don't check the page ranks of the blogs I comment on at all, because they have no interest to me. What matters to me is relevance. I do very well indeed, in SEO terms, by commenting on relevant sites. I don't care what their page ranks are (nor whether they're do-follow/no-follow). the time-consuming part of the deal, for me, is finding good, relevant sites on which I can comment: once I find one, I'm not going to leave it without commenting (if I can) just because of its page rank. These backlinks are typically a whole different world from article directory backlinks (i.e. far more valuable).