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With regard to YouTube not being sandboxed (assuming it wasn't), I think you also need to remember that the sandbox doesn't mean Google will never return results to your site. It means that it tends to dramatically downgrade your site.
If you are the only site that matches a search term well, Google will return your site when people seek that term.
Also, Google not only uses backlinks but also analyzes which search results are clicked by users.
When YouTube was very new and a candidate for the sandbox, it probably was in the sandbox -- for at least the first week. But what happened? It was phenomenal and there was nothing else that matched the search term "YouTube" (or even "You Tube".
Google would have seen lots of people searching for "YouTube" (which at the time would hardly have been a competitive term); lots of people would also search for descriptive terms. (Downloadable videos? ) They'd be trying a variety of things until they recognized the match they wanted. Then they clicked (and didn't use their backbutton to find another match.)
Google would notice this behavior and notice these people clicked on the result for YouTube itself. Many of these people don't have blogs, don't have sites and don't drop links. But since Google also watches outclicks, their clicks helped pull YouTube out of the sandbox fast!
Of course, once people found the site, all the bloggers posted videos with links to YouTube. YouTube then accumulated backlinks on good sites very fast. The pattern truly looks like a great new site, and Google noticed.
If you create a phenomenal new site everyone really wants to find, the sandbox is irrelevant.
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