Are directories dead?

yep thats true to some degree but you have to pay a lot of money to get into top quality directories...

They are good ,but have to wait for the approval

From personal experience I know that you can get benefit from registering in directories, from some of them you get good backlinks and it not should be excluded from the list of resources for SEO.

Hi Ed, I don't think like directories are dead and not good for SEO. Sometimes you may get may wed address from the directory. So it sometimes helpful for the SEO work I think. But you didn't explain why you think they are not workable. If you could explain then it could be more clear.

respectfully i dont agree...directories help search engines to better categories and better understand the site....content

I also believe that it worths submiting to directories. There are directories with high page rank that it worths having your site listed there...
It's better to have a backlink from a similar of yours website but why not do both? You may spend some time but every directory is a backlink...