I find it funny when an SEO takes something that has been around forever, calls it something else and then claims it’s brand new.
People have been claiming that the first text Google sees gets weighted more for years and that the first links would get the same.

However, a little research, reading and testing can disprove this theory before it gets out of the gate.

On Matt Cutts blog Danny Sullivan made the comment that Google decides how much page rank is passed.

Danny Sullivan, “Google might see 10 links on a page that has $10 of PageRank to spend. It might notice that 5 of those links are navigational elements that occur a lot throughout the site and decide they should only get 50 cents each. It might decide 5 of those links are in editorial copy and so are worthy of getting more. Maybe 3 of them get $2 each and 2 others get $1.50 each, because of where they appear in the copy, if they’re bolded or any of a number of other factors you don’t disclose.”

And Matt said, “Yes, I would agree that Google itself solely decides how much PageRank will flow to each and every link on a particular page.”

Page rank is not spread equally among links and has not been for years.

I myself have noticed links being placed in certain places on pages seems to carry little to no weight.

It makes no different rather they are seen first or not, there are other factors at play and to think that Google is so limited in their ability makes me wonder if SEO’s have run out of things to talk about.