My question is, if you submit to as many directories as you can (all with a category relevant to your sites) do you think it will get you penalised. I don't see how Google can do this since there's nothing wrong with promoting your site on the assumption that people find you via directories, and how can google really tell which ones are good and which ones not, other than ibl/
PR.
We've identified about 1000 directories, and offer a service to submit to all, by hand, about 70% would work for most sites, and about 70% of that number eventually validate the link (mopnths later). I've done so with my sites and seen no adverse reaction.