Well I cannot comment on others I will speak from my own experience and myself.
I started just over 2 years ago. Initial invest was as follows...
$800 in reg's that all expired one year later without one single offer or dollar earned. ( I was new, unlearned and reg'd foolishly )
At the same time I bought BCA.net for $500 after researching the acronym market and sold it for $XXXX
Took that $XXXX and bought BS.net, as public knowledge that sold for $15,100
Took that $15,100 and bought....
Get the picture, $500 and determination has evolved into a 6 figure a year payoff each of the last two years and the train is still in motion. I can add over half the names I sale are never seen on the board and usually are larger or equal to as I have built a little client list.
Pick a niche, read up, invest wisely and work hard. It does pay off, not every day or even month but each time it does it makes it worth it.
same story here, I started late in 05 despite having registered my own surname .com back in 2000 and a bunch of other names that have since dropped...
I started with $700 or so with a LLL.net from Snaps, took that resold for x3, bought some NNNN.com, started investing more money and have since grown like Josh (albeit I like to spend more whereas he likes to save)
Partnerships is another great example where both parties can benefit, if you read any of the big domainer's background you'll see that in one way or another they worked in pairs, investing together or hunting together and generally speaking leveraging the strengths of each other...
There are no fat cats in the game, in fact (and I rarely agree with my other fellow Greek) he's right in saying your post sounds like sour grapes. I got admitted in Rick's forum shortly after I started just by sending a nice application to Rick and being eager to start off in this business..
As for Sahar for those who know him (yes I guess he circles around fat cats) is one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. He's down to earth, always willing to help and provide guidance.. There's TONS more people like him that barely make headlines let alone circle the forums such as Eric Rice, Donna Mahoney, Adam Strong, Dave Evanson, Alan Reid, Jeremy Padawer and the list goes on. People like these have dealt in domains since the early days, have amazing portfolios and yet they are so much down to earth it's not even funny!
The only thing that you've identified correctly in your little essay here is the purpose that some of the big guys going public are serving and that is to GROW and become PUBLIC in one way or another (acquisition target, BD, general awareness,....)
Ultimately the issue boils down to most domainers having Type A personalities and I guess it's kind of hard to stay afloat if you're submissive :smilewinkgrin: