creating search phrase pages

[nube]

i am rebuilding one of our older sites, and i face this dilema, basically in the old days we used to build a page containing a specific search term then link it to another search term with the same topic, so you may have 100 pages containing the term widget but different phrases built out of that one word, such as
widgets online
widgets offline
widgets blue
widgets green
widgets in chicago
hotel reservation in widgets
widget hotel reservation in chicago

well, you get the picture. The dilema is that this site i have currently on my work bench has all that built in it. QUESTION is, is this form of SEO still viable to use or should it be scrapped and redesigned,

every item i look at has a sitemap built just out of search terms like the one above, 100-75 pages for each product item,

i need some insight "please"
thanks to all of you for being out there
george