I almost forgot about a small site built about 3 years ago
20+ pages unique content
Never updated, no links, very much white hat SEO a la Brett plus a few tips borrowed here and there from WebmasterWorld.
Out of curiosity I checked it out today
My most important terms come 3rd out of about 5M in G, and 8th in Y out of about 5M.
I am referring to highly competitive area where my terms are everyone’s terms and very generic.
Now could be time to cash on it!

But the possible lesson is:
Pick up a few DN, put together a few very basic sites with unique content
Then wait and see.
No big deal to seed 10 or 20 of those, sit on them for 2 or 3 years and if any decent SERP ranking emerges from the abysses then harvest the result of your hard labor :)