question Anyone got a feelgood saved powerful domain with seo?

[WebNameTOP]

Im seeing some really amazing domain names drop with massive backlinks and age.
The one thing in common lots of crazy anchor links now with Chinese letters
or just plane old 2 letter anchors.
Has anyone taken a chance and done a bit of good seo and gotten some of those back up in value and rankings recently?
If so would love to hear how and what you got as reward from it.