Duke, if I recall correctly, I got most of these via pre-regs thru 3-4 registrars. I do remember that I'd worked very hard on myself to keep me out of it (due to my experiences with .info rollout) but at the end I gave in and did end up submitting thru a few registrars. By then, most of the prime names were already pre-regged but I was able to successfully bid for a few dozen thru Dotster.
All in all, now it looks like that it was a good move...Only time will tell!