Reviving pre-owned domain with decent DA/PA - What to expect?

Your concerns are indeed correct, but it depends on what you buy and what you build then on, and how good is your selection process (then also the site building process as well). Fortunately there's no such problem, any of the concerns you have mentioned do not apply in my case.

Banned: Was referring to the domain itself, as some might appear to be clean but might carry a manual action even though there's no way to see them, such as a history of spam pages placed on the domain in the past, and caught then by Google. Otherwise it would not be "banned" but a reversible automatic penalty. Tried to keep the post short though, maybe this is why it came out differently.

I only purchase quite valuable domains, and filter them a lot before spending any $. Then build something very close to original purpose (this is also I only purchase domains from niches in which I have enough experience and I am comfortable in). The links are strong; many are from well reputed sites and there's no same IP or C class link. Some domains are bought at an auction, others captured when expiring. There's different experience I had over the many years in different directions, now coming together as I've had some recent ideas on how to put together a better selection and building process, kind of a breakthrough.

Since the post, the tests went great. Only 20% of what I've tested did not rank well. I am currently targeting a high-competition niche with one of the domains (web hosting) and the results are nice, although it's quite early. I'm also targeting a couple medium competition ones and got great results as well.

Side note, none of the IBL's are forum or directory links or the sorts, not even sitewide; I stay away from any of that and whatever else falls in the same line. Mostly text links from well-established sites, sometimes even big sites with a lot of authority.

So again, it depends on the amount of work you spend and attention to detail before purchasing a domain (selection process), and then the amount of attention you put in the building process.

Thanks for your comment!

The point of the question was seeking confirmation. Since my current domain selection process is rather new, I never went with one of these projects all the way in. I had successes in the past but also failures with projects that had great content but in the end I wasn't able to bring enough high quality links. On the on-page part, the process might still need polishing although I'm confident the current one is working, but looking to make it better.

Anyway, right now the growth looks nice; like a new domain that started with the right foot but far sooner. Looking at the growth curve, it will still take the usual few months for traffic to climb, noting that most of the needed content has also to be added. However indeed there is quite a difference in comparison with starting anew. I also will look to add some fresh backlinks as well down the line, this has to be in regardless of the starting situation of the domain.

As no search engine uses them as a ranking metric, they are worth NOTHING!

On what basis are you saying this? Can you elaborate?