The "expert theory" holds a bit of validity.
The expert theory is looking for the following:
[list:ed8f75b1a3]
[*:ed8f75b1a3]A great number of links to the authority page
[*:ed8f75b1a3]The links are from diverse sources
[*:ed8f75b1a3]Directory Listings are prominent
[/list:u:ed8f75b1a3]
I can see this happening. For sure Directories that link OUT to pages are ranking higher than the pages in many cases. It wouldn't be shocking to think this plan is being implemented.
There is still a ton of non-expert crapola spam results that I see.
Just to make things tougher to track: there has been yet another weird update in the last 24 hours.