Linking to Top Dogs

How can it be good!

[fashezee]

From what I understand, linking to the top ranking sites for the respective keyword one
is trying to rank high in, will help. right?

Won't the SEs see this as redundant as one may have already seen the first place site. With
a link to the first place site on your site will show the user a site he/she has already seen?

[vitaplease]

IMO every search engine wants the webmaster to do what is best for the searcher/visitor.

In an ideal world you would have a good amount of content text and a couple of external links towards "independant type" authorities/sources which are very much on theme/topic on more or less every content page of your site (take the example of a scientific publication).

Just linking to the top five in the serps does not mean that that link is necessarily most on topic/theme or most informative or the real source of information you are referring to.

If I were a search engine I would give extra points for an external link towards a "deeper" page for example. Most probably that link would be very on topic, or more on topic than an indexpage.

There are algorithms described in which a first ranking would occur for a search query, than a second one which looks how many of the "inner-crowd" (say the top 250) link towards your site to result in a re-ranking. (Do your peers vote for you as well). Do some reading on HITS - Kleinberg