I think one of the reasons that disputes are so common, apart from intentional abuse by registrants, is that trademark law is so murky. Merely having a trademark does not guarantee that your name is in an absolutely safe harbor. Examples include:

(1) Use of single real dictionary words or common phrases which the USPTO accidentally grants exclusivity to.

(2) Use of the same name in an unrelated industry (especially when the USPTO grants a duplicate trademark).

(3) Use of the name in a manner that is on a different “tier”, so there is no chance of confusion, e.g., marketing a product using the domain name rather than your company name, in the case where a company name is trademarked.

The reality is that trademark law rests more on the spirit than the letter of the law.

To answer spoons question :
Google did try something as did ICANN earlier in the year :
http://www.domainnamenews.com/featured/google-and-icann-did-not-kill-domain-tasting-domain-kiting-and-nsi-front-running-doa/1400

but later ICANN made new policy geared at stopping domain tasting by increasing fees. This likely stopped a majority of tasting . . .
http://www.domainnamenews.com/miscellaneous/icann-board-resolution-kills-domain-tasting/1689

One thing not mentioned in all of this is all the ISPs such as Verizon now hijacking 404 error pages including trademark/typo domain names.

I remember reading something about it earlier this year.