Onders - 10:43 am on Jun 24, 2011 (gmt 0)

Is a large scale "no-index" not likely to throw up some flags - especially if it doesn't follow the normal behaviour of your site?

Just a thought, but what about phasing this in by removing the links and letting them drop out of the serps over time? (assuming they don't have any inbound links of course - but then you can just do 301's top protect the juice)