"Two years, miniumn, then? That's good to know."
I wouldn't quote that as a hard-and-fast rule. Your mileage may vary, but there are TM cases in which a laches defense prevailed in view of periods of inaction as short as that.
"I'm certain many people who hold generic names have been threatened by would-be trademark holders."
Absolutely. People will say almost anything to get their hands on a good domain name sometimes. But that is no different from ownership of any other sort of valuable asset. When one has something that other people want, then inevitably one must defend against claims of right advanced by others.
Rights of ownership in anything are not self-executing. I once had a neighbor, for example, who genuinely believed he owned a five-foot wide strip of property near the edge of my backyard. Was it an unwelcome pain to hire a surveyor to come out and mark out the legal boundaries of my yard? You bet. Was it even more of a pain to find out my neighbor came out in the middle of the night to move the surveyor's stakes? Yep. But life is like that, and domain name disputes haven't added anything new to the burden of one who must protect his or her rights from time to time. Anyone who has anything valuable, and anyone in any line of business, has to deal rationally with conflict.
