I doubt they are all snagged by by backorders, firstly,simply because the good ones are worth more and the registrars will get as much as they can by auctioning them. secondly, a good deal of the value of a domain lays in the skill and experience of the webmaster and how and what they are used for. Having said that there is a lot of trawling to do do if you want a good domain name and good page rank.
Good domain is one with highly searched keywords that can be monetised. Godaddy is another place to look and also the marketplace here
Well some of them are being snatched as soon as they become available.there are thousand of people looking for this. Some of them are also fake so do your research before registering