tedster - 9:39 pm on Aug 28, 2008 (gmt 0)

I would almost always choose #1 - especially for 50 different links! Remember that anchor text is also an on-page factor, and repeating any word that often can start to fit a spammer foot print. Search engines today do not need us to hammer them with our relevance signals, the way we did in the '90s.

And if you just want to talk about looks, I prefer #1 as a user too. It's much easier to scan.