Finally, Someone got it right and had killer graphics to boot. Nice representation (particularly on click depth) or hops whatever preferred nomenclature one opts for.
In my experience, the more hops one has away from the root, the more internal and deep links are required to create buoyancy in the SERPs for specific keywords (depending on the pages and sites competing for those keywords) and their respective authority.
If a site is developed properly (as a result of superior site architecture) then it will send PageRank into the deeper nested pages faster as a result of managing the link equity, which also has the added benefit of ranking higher on less inbound deep links.
I have experimented with this and created a site in the cosmetics industry (within a 4 month period) that outranked drugstore.com and walgreens as well as ranked right next to major cosmetic companies, their brand names, etc. and had less than 200 inbound links.
Just to make the point that its not always about the off page ranking factors. Does this work, absolutely, the only thing I would have added was using dynamic linking to sculpt the on page link equity further, but great stuff.
