Link Wheels are still very effective as long as you use good Content Curation coupled with Social Signals and Bookmarks. Previous spinning techniques for content are just not that good any more.
As long as you build some good tier-1 properties pointing back to your money site and GRADUALLY start anchoring new backlinks that are RELEVANT back to your Tier-1 properties, you will get good results.
I invested in the GSA Search Enginer Ranker and Rapid Indexer tools last year and they do very well on building up organic traffic to your websites.
When I became a Google Certified Adwords Specialist a few months ago, I was able to gain access to some really good training and keyword resources within Google's toolsuite that helped me understand the Penguin and Panda updates more clearly. As long as you adhere to them in your backlinking efforts, you will be fine.
Hope this helps.
Marty B