Hi,
Directory submissions for SEO is somewhat of an ‘overcooked’ practice. That is everyone who set out on an SEO campaign for the last few years has had directory submission as part of the campaign.
This has led to a massive number of poor quality directories appearing that offer little or no value and are frankly a waste of time.
Having said that, directory submission can have a number of positive effects, IF you take the time to find high quality and relevant directories AND take the time to write specific profiles AND post in the relevant category on that directory. Running a campaign that includes directories can also help develop a ‘natural’ link building campaign, so in my opinion they can be worthwhile, if done correctly.
To answer your question directly, here goes:
1. Regular links (no follow) – These won’t pass any PR as you suggest, although you may get some traffic from users clicking on your link. Make sure you add your submission to the correct category on the directory to pick up targeted traffic.
2. Reciprocal links. I wouldn’t chose this option, the value of this type of link is highly devalued these days and you would be wasting your time in all honesty.
You say your target is to reach the first page of search engines, to help achieve this you will need to find ‘do follow’ links. This is the type of link that acts as a vote for your site and will help you to achieve a first page rank.
If I was you, I would spend more time making relevant blog comments (adding to the conversation, not just ‘great post’), writing and submitting unique articles to directories and doing come competitor link analysis instead of spending time generating links from directories. This will deliver traffic AND help you move up the search engine rankings.
Hope this helps...