Boost for inbound links

[Insurance Squared Inc.]

Is there any good way to boost for the number of inbound links to a 
page?  I guess we can't use PR as that's patented, but I thought that we 
could somehow boost based on the number of inbound links.  Upon looking 
at the conf though (and my developer's reply) it doesn't seem like we 
can do this.  Am I missing something obvious?  Or should I be looking at 
building this in?

thanks,
g.