Sorry for the confusion in that statement.
The reason I lumped resellers in with registrars in that vein is based on a personal experience, where a reseller effectively went away by no longer answering email and phone calls, and the registrar was not helpful in either renewing the domain or allowing it to be transferred away.
The reseller was still officially in business, however he was not responsive (has since taken down his website).
The domain expired, though it did not drop before we were able to get it renewed - at a very expensive rate directly with the registrar - and ultimately transferred. It was not a straightforward process by any stretch of the imagination.
There was a snapback on this domain, and had it dropped, it surely would have been lost to my customer. We only managed to renew it within a few days of it actually dropping, and this only after threats of legal action against the registrar if he allowed the name to drop.
-t