Big Money Moving To Performance Marketing

Its a interesting time right now for big business. In the last couple months I have been contacted by many SEO's that are out of a job and looking for work. They say there "clients"/employers just cant justify the costs. During the same time I have been getting contacted by performance marketing companies who cant find people to hire fast enough. The affiliate marketing industry is on fire right now and those companies are thriving. Azoogleads, Affiliate.com, all the major players are reporting record profits. Even in a recession companies have an unlimited budget for marketing efforts which show a positive result and from a ROI perspective it doesn't get much more transparent then when your paying per lead/sale/action. I recently wrote about my experience at AD:TECH and how amazingly busy it was. It reminded me of Search Engine Strategies conferences of 4-5 years ago when Google/Yahoo/ASK/Microsoft all had amazing events and battled for the attendance of attendees. Now at the Search Engine Strategies events the average conference goer is lucky to get a free drink ticket. I would love to hear your opinions from those of you going to events on what you are seeing?