In my opinion, page rank is a clever marketing tool, invented by google in order to achieve three aims.
1. To generate frequent, heated discussion about google - its a publicity magnet. It also makes people want it, so they concentrate on google more than other s/e's.
2. As a clever weapon to hold over many sites in there attempts to stop the use of alternative advertising methods and drive lots of the competition out of business. For example, do what we say or we will take your page rank away. Dont sell links to people as has been done since the web started, instead write your sites with no-follow, for the search engine (in direct contradiction to googles original ethos of write sites for users not search engines) or use our advertising instead.
3. To provide some input into the ranking of sites.