GoogleGuy - 7:10 am on Sep 28, 2002 (gmt 0)

Nicely put, chiyo. steveb and EliteWeb put it pretty well too. In my experience, the best SEOs have the ability to put themselves into the role of the typical user.

If you take as a given that Google wants to give the best page to the user that it can, you're pretty far down that path. An SEO who can see things as a user ends up making a site that users like, and those sites tend to succeed on their own. The SEOs who are on the same wavelength as users tend to avoid shortcuts, and his or her sites attract a following (and rankings) more easily.