What should I do about my "link wheel" that works?

I have read many say that link wheels don't work, that Google will sniff you out and penalize you. All I can say is that with my rudimentary knowledge of SEO, it sure worked for me. I have a network of sites that feed links here and there to one another. Maybe a couple dozens sites. I did it over the past three years, but I had good results very quickly three years ago. I have very few links outside of my link wheel. Yet, I have done well. I dominate the SERPs for many of my keywords. Granted, this is low traffic stuff, but the profit/sale is high, so, it works.

Mind you, 98% of my domains are bought in my own name and I do not have privacy. It should be a snap for Google to see that these sites belong to me! That is, if Google snoops the WHOIS.

But, people say you need to have your sites on different IP's. I have them scattered, but the majority are on two shared hosting plans!

People say you need to register each domain under a different person. How do you do that, recruit a bunch of friends or pay people to put it under their names? In lieu, of that, someone mentioned that you could buy it under your own name, yes, but buy the Privacy feature, where your identity/address/phone is not shown.

So, Google cannot see the "real" WHOIS info? Do you think this "solves" the issue of, supposedly, needing to buy domains in different names? I want to buy another domain right now.

And also, I wonder about "converting" the others to Private and even putting them each on a different IP. But, wonder if Google already "knows" that these domains are mine.