Google has been asking for this. SEO has a new angle and Jim (of Webuilpages) is the pioneer. No longer is domain registration part of smart SEO - it's all about buying an old domain and changing as little whois info as possible - preferrably just getting the login info for the registrar.

Jim's got a post on the buying of old sites and, in typical brilliant business fashion, offers his services to find old sites in your niche for a paltry $500 here. Guess what I'm doing next time we have a new client...