Sometimes "rhe rich" also try to lowball and seriously. Once, I negotiated with somebody who in fact was a VP of a "fortune 500" company. He used personal email and real name (not so frequent First+LastName combination, emails were sent from an IP range belonging to this company hq)... The domain had 4 figures BIN, something this particular buyer could pay instantly without a pmt plan, but he still wasted time sending $100 offers. He said that he cannot afford more (a style of a "poor student").
One of internal explanations I have is that those who have many $$$, are in this financial posititon not only because they gain a lot, but also because sometimes they tend to buy stuff as cheap as possible.
The article does not mention a small (but existing) queue of inquires from real previous owners, who failed to renew their domains. In this case, a special handing may be needed. At least, they deserve a response even to a request "please give me my domain back (for free)". In many cases, such inquiries are "dead on arrival", but... better to respond to them now, and not to the registrar or hosting who may later receive a complaint about "stolen" domain - many previous owners are unaware how renewals work.