Well its hard to say when that post was originally written, but It doesn't go into the fact that you now get penalized for over use of anchor texts, which people do in the footer for web design.
Big business don't let you add your own links to the footer, It's their brand, not yours, and they paid for the service.
Small business tolerate it because they are just used to it been done, and like the article, a bit ignorant to its use.
For seo you've got to be careful about the overuse of the link in a footer, if a site has 1000's of pages, it can work negatively for you. Matt Cutts once mentioned that if you do do it, to place a nofollow on the link. The link now days is not really for the webmaster, but for the end user. Its more a way to pick up referral work. So leaving nofollow, so the bot knows is the best option, and mix up your anchor texts.
You can make it work for you, but you have to be more strategic in why and where the link goes too.
Things like don't send them to the root of your site, but send them to a portfolio / testimonial page from the client on your site. This type of link can be nofollow and dofollow. because its related to the client. You also have to think through the clients seo benefit. If you put a thousand links pointing out at a site, this could become a negative thing for them. You need to think it through.
Also you still get some page juice with a nofollow, (just not as much) ;P
