I see the situation very differently. I look at domain names just like other types of investments, such as property or shares. The PPC or affiliate income off of a portfolio of domains is equivalent to rent (on a property) or dividends (shares) and the sale of domains is equivalent to the disposal of any other asset.
Just like other investments, doing domains "properly" requires a good deal of time (researching new domains, chasing drops, finding buyers, optimising type-in traffic etc.) and money (paying for regs, paying to chase drops, buying speculatively in the aftermarket etc.)
Seen from a purely business vantage point (which is, frankly, the way you should be viewing it since the trend points to more consolidation in the domain name market, not less) the domain aftermarket is composed of several hundred highly professional "players" with portfolios in the thousands-to-hundreds-of-thousands of domains and then perhaps another 1,000 people with at least 100 domains each. For many of the larger players, "domains" are a full-time or semi-full-time occupation.
It may be frustrating to see that people "got there first" but in many cases you could be 5-8 years too late (I was registering the first domains to anchor my portfolio - now over 2,700 names strong - in 1996 - and have put in thousands of hours researching domains over the years since then)
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