I used to own my surname, owned it for 5 years or so, I forgot to renew it and it expired. I attempted to purchase it as it went out to the wild (it was in the deleted status but not released yet, about a 30 day period), but it got snatched by a squatter who is now attempting to sell it. Big group, doesn't care about the name, only that it was previously registered and that they want to sell it back to the owner (me). There are other TLD's open with my surname (its very very uncommon), but I had a lot of stuff tied to my particular TLD.
I researched back when this happened, but $1300 was ridiculous to dispute on something that I just administrated for my family. I attempted to contact the law firm that registered and was promptly ignored. This was a year ago, I waited to see if they would let the domain go, nobody's going to buy it from them, but they renewed it for another 1 year.
I honestly believe icann can do more about this issue, obvious squatters should pay more to hold the name space. Something to deter large organizations from simply owning domain names that was once previously owned. I could register some random text .com "jdklajflkda.com" let it expire, and I bet you a squatter picks it up.