Alot of them are corporate lease returns. Can't sell 'em as new, so they gotta sell 'em somehow. Some of the resellers you see at places like ebay, are contract resellers to the businesses that originally leased the machines. That's how I got my Dell Latitude. The answer to one of your questions is definitely yes, there are people (not just IT types either) that take advantage of employee buy-back policies getting discounted machines and reselling them. I am only the second "registered" user of my current laptop, but it may have passed through a few hands between the first and myself.