I've introduced many new sites over the past year and although they're all indexed, none of them are in the serps except for the name of the company or obscure results. However, I have old sites that are smaller with no more backlinks or PR that rank well.
For example, I have a site that has 18 backlinks and PR4 that I've tinkered with for about a year and it's not in any of the serps except for the name of the company. I emailed google and they said there was no penalty.
