Minibanners against text links

Which one is good deal

[silverbytes]

Some sites love to have images linking to their sites. They consider that a more important way to link to them than if you put just a text link.
I don't care, I will link to them with images or not. But what would be better to get back from them?

Link images too? Or better plain text links?
We heard enough about anchor texts so... do I exchange minibanners in my site for text links to mine?
Do you think that is a good deal?

[elklabone]

Anchor text is very important to Google, so I'll opt for the text link everytime.

[rogerd]

Silverbytes, to answer your question, yes, I'd take the text link and provide a mini-banner in return if that's what it takes to get the link.

The only exception would be if the partner site was very popular and on-topic, and they offer visible positioning for your link. In that case, a banner might offer higher click-through. Even then, a text link might still be a good choice, though, both from an anchor text and click standpoint.