tedster - 11:43 pm on Dec 23, 2010 (gmt 0)

But I thought I read that only the first of multiple links on a page counts

Those tests showed that only the first of several links TO THE SAME URL seemed to count. Also, the way we need to test things like this is to use anchor text, since we can't access anything about current PR values to see if they change.

Some interesting follow-on tests seem to show that even when the outbound URLs are the same, a different fragment identifier means that the anchor text does carry influence.

At any rate, I'm not from the stingy school when it comes to outbound links - like you, I do what seems best for the visitor. Not only that, on one of my more successful site launches I took on the discipline of making sure ever page linked externally at least twice. Early rankings and regularly improving rankings were the result.