Well, not the point of the post, but here's a choice fact:

a company called Ultsearch that made money gobbling up expired domains. Ultsearch would scan the registries for expiring domains, snatching those domains with a descent level of search engine traffic and then turning the domain into advertiser sponsored links. This garbage collection activity netted the owner a mind boggling $164.2 million when it was acquired late last year.

Wow.