Yes - mostly factors outside my control - but I did read about one site that found removing their link units made a difference to CPC - but even leaving this aside - I have FAR too many link units / adverts all over the place - so I needed to remove them to improve the user experience anyway..
And, the option to not show your ads on the content network has been around for a long time now, and I always turn it off for any Adwords stuff I do for anyone....
