"Link exchange" Homepage!

Soon I will start my new site & would like to build traffic by doing "link exchange" for homepage only with mostly related sites!

I don't believe so much in doing "link exchange" and placing links on "link page" for this purpose!! This will give me NO traffic, though it will increase "link popularity" in the longer run!

Mainly, I am looking to build traffic through home page "link exchange" with mostly related sites as mentioned before!

1. What is your opinion here about my approach?

Furthermore, I have a few other questions as well:

2. How many links of "link partners" are still acceptable on homepage?

I mean 10, 100 links or 1000 links of link partners on homepage makes a difference. I still need to present my service to my audience as well in a descent way without that they get crazy about all my links I added from link partners!

3. How should I go about things:

Just send email to web master of site I would like to do link exchange with?

4. The problem I also face is that most likely sites with a lot of traffic don't want to do homepage linkexchange with a site which doesn't have any traffic yet!!

How do I tickle this problem?
1st build traffic through link exchange with smaller sites & then approach the bigger ones?

Let me know...

Thanks a lot for your time & advise!