Where have all the domain names gone?

[Ned]

Right, somebody out there must know what happens to all the domain names.

I'm looking at setting up a couple more sites and researching available names yet loads and loads of likely ones are not available.
But when u look they're not actually in use, so what is going on?

Is there some bulk free name reservation scam where people just reserve lots of good names for some reason without it costing them anything? If I reserved loads and loads of names it would cost me a fortune so how can they do it?

Any way round this? - though the name doesn't matter much in this case anyway - I'm just intrigued.

[krazykizza]

ovh.co.uk do a free .co.uk system for a year, if you dont cough up after the year they put it on hold until the end of the two years. So the site you built up in that year would be trashed if you didnt pay the five quid renewal fee.