I can't speak for Nandini, but I agree with what she is saying. PR (PageRank) can be easily manipulated and faked without any SEO.
For example:
http://pr10.darkseoteam.com/
SEO is only one piece of running a successful website. Because a website can have the best PR, the number 1 position on every SE and exposed to the whole world, but if the site does not do a good job selling their products and/or services then all this is a waste of time, money and energy. Based on many discussions on various forums, many people are focused on PR and not focusing on the content on their site. Good SEO, good content and added value (what makes you stand out from your competition) is a winning combination. High PR and SEO cannot do that alone.
Here is my personal case study with PR, about a year ago I had a PR7 on my main site. I spend hours, days linking, optimizing, the works. After a business evaluation on the time and effort and the additional income I had obtained on the site. I decided to scrap PR building and focus more on traditional marketing tactics. My business tripled in the first 6 months and has not slowed down since then. As of today my main site has a PR of 3 and my backup site (load balancing) has a PR of 1. They both get high traffic and plenty of leads.
To me PR was a handicap and a process I could have done without. Almost every client I have, has no clue what PR is and we are talking about only 1 search engine.
I'll let Nandini explain the rest because she does a good job doing that.
imaginemn