Most of my clients are brick and mortar businesses. They need LOCAL visibility more than national Google rankings, and, the directories and services you mention provide it!
This really came home for me when one of my clients, a counselor in Carrollton, Texas, pointed out that his clientele first asked about LOCATION.
A weekend with superpages, merchantcircle, insiderpages reviews and the others you mention made his business really pop:
www.carrolltonmarriageandfamilycounceling.com
The result? He called me after two weeks and said "I don't know what you've done but I may have TOO MUCH work now."
Local directories work quickly! In my SEO work I now "Think Nationally, and Act Locally" to paraphrase somebody :-)