A WebmasterWorld member wants confirmation if getting multiple links would cause a penalty in the SERPs. He notes that very popular sites which rank on the first page of Google have a lot of links, including those from "shady" places. Why, then, can't he do the same thing on his smaller site?
Some forum members believe that the age and authority of site matter in this case. Some sites just always get inbound links. Others don't unless something is up.
A new site that gets like 20 links per day, then all of a sudden gets 2000 in one day, well then there's tom foolery going on there and the penalty gets slapped. Once that penalty is slapped, over time it will go away.
So be careful when you build your links, because you can find a dent in your rankings, but as forum members note, the rankings will generally improve.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.