A lot of that may have to do with all the infomercials that used .biz and .info. Country specific tlds have been doing fine. A company with the marketing resources to brand their tld could do well here.
> Things like .lawyer also feel more inclined towards "ambulance chasers" rather than real law offices with money to get the .com they wanted.
I dunno, I think lots of real law firms will prefer, as one example, the new .llc or .llp domains (which Google applied for, don't think they've been awarded yet) to .com; having your domain name being more exactly your business name has value.
Maybe true, but things like .academy just reek of potential scammers/fly-by-night operations that could not qualify for a real .edu.
Things like .lawyer also feel more inclined towards "ambulance chasers" rather than real law offices with money to get the .com they wanted.