I have been doing
SEO work on a trucking industry oriented website and I have seen a rise in my search returns on google from 600 plus to the mid 40's for three of my primary terms. I have not reached my front page goal but am on my way.
I say all this to say that I believe footer links can be very beneficial if done correctly. I took the idea of a site-map style footer a step further. I made the links in my footer to appear as search strings or as close to what I think the best search string would be for that page. Rather than one or two words most have 3-5 words.
For instance instead of a link saying "Trucks For Sale" the link says "Find Used and New Big Rig Trucks For Sale" another says "Find New Truck Driver Jobs" rather than "Trucker Jobs"
You can view the links at the bottom of each my pages at
TruckerHub.com
This is one of the many steps I have used over the past 5 months to optimize this site and I really believe it has had a positive impact in the serps.