Inbound/Outbound Ratio and Other Linking Questions

[rcmedia2004]

Hi,

What is the optimal ratio of outbound/inbound links to a website?
I've currently got 628 links spread out over 42 Links pages on a clients site.
No links page has more then 50 outbound links, some have only a few.
466 of those are confirmed as linking back to us, the other 144 I'm still waiting for an answer from (*on top of all this I removed roughly 100 deadbeat link partners yesterday during my monthly link audit >>> I give potential link partners 5-6 weeks to respond before I send them the link audit notice.).

My questions are:

A) Is it time for me to quit doing reciprocal linking for a month or two and try to shore up these outbound links one way or the other? When is it too many outbounds? What is the best ratio?
when do you hold off on actively seeking new partners and try to get all your current requests confirmed?

B) Is it optimal SEO to have ALL of your links reciprocating, and very few that are not (i.e. outbound only).

C) How important is on-page placement of your link partners links? (*i.e. should I move all link partners that actually link back to us to the top of their respective pages and move all the links that don't link back to either the bottom of pages or to another links page earmarked only for links that don't reciprocate.

I've always wondered about this stuff.
Thanks in advance.

[google junky]

A) As far as ratio, I only know from a clients site that I still take care of. I set them up with a links script. They have over 600 links outbound and remain at #1 on google for their search phrase. It seemingly has no effect that I know of to have many links as long as you keep the number down per page as you have done. As long as you haven't ran out of resources for asking sites to link to you then I say keep doing what your doing. Of course linking to sites relevant to your site is a big plus.

B) It's always nice to have all of them to add your link to their site. Again I don't think their is a ratio issue to worry about. This is totally up to you. Maybe the site will turn into a source for great information along with it's current scope.

C) Google likes to read what a page starts with or things near the top. If someone was looking for something and it just happens to be there then great.
I also think your idea of people who link to the site can be at the top is a great idea. That makes it an earned system.

Wish I had more to offer than I did. These were excellent questions. Possibly someone will come along and add to this and help a little more.