seo is like this

the bigger the mess the better

do everything, don't stick to any "systems" because google can pick up a pattern but a mess seems natural

there's seo for you

There are one benefit and two shortcomming with profile links.
The benefit is straight, you get a backlinks.
But the problems:
1- There is no anchor text for profile links
2- Some of the profile links may not work and won't get indexed.

Yes, profile link still doing good and effective, go with it!