The points you make are disturbing. As far as I can tell, the reason why people shy away from SEO is not that it doesn't work. Indeed, it seems like people shy away from SEO because it works too well. At least for me, there's a perception that SEO is evil and crowds out legitimate content. I would hope that these startups are not going over to SEO just because it works; I would hope that SEO is trying to show that it works legitimately.