Translated sites and interlinking

Does having a site in additional languages give you an edge when linking?

[Bobby]

Besides the obvious advantage of reaching out to foreign language markets what other advantages can be gained by tranlating your site into other languages?

I am moving ahead with my travel related site in Spanish and soon Italian, the sites will all be interlinked, would this boost my rankings? If so, what would the ideal linking strategy be?

For example, would linking from every page to the index page in the other language be good? My feeling is it's better to link directly to the relevant page in the other language, thus not "overlinking" to any one page from a site.

As far as strategy in developing the foreign language sites, would it be wiser to register a new domain for each language or to have one MEGASITE?
The problem with having a megasite in my opinion is that you wouldn't gain advantage by interlinking, although your site does become more of an "authority" so to speak.

Just looking for some thoughts on the subject.