LinkBait: Necessary or Bull S***?

So I'm reading this blog by Nick Wilson, one of the founders of Performancing "Helping Bloggers Succeed." I'm already to send you to this post entitled The Art of Linkbaiting, when I visit his home page and find a contradiction.
In the post, Nick talks about the different categories of linkbaiting:
* News hook
* Contrary Hook
* Attack Hook
* Resource Hook
* Humour Hook
Nick reviews examples of each type of linkbait hook that will help increase your visibility on the web and hopefully your readership.
Curious to learn more, I go to his home page where I find this video by Loren:. A little warning, Loren uses some bad language, so if you are easily offended – don't view.
But Loren's basic point is that linkbaiting is just a convoluted concept:
I'll paraphrase, but basically he says "Be truthful, interesting, engaging, funny, and honest in your posts."
That's what it takes to get people to read what you write.
So what do you think? The WWW is a vast universe with millions of bloggers sharing their opinion. Is honesty and humor enough to stand out or do you need to engage in a little linkbaiting to catch a reader and keep them hooked?
ed?