gradguy, I'm right there with you in everything you said. Between the expense of applying to schools and the time/effort I put in as an undergrad doing research, cramming for the GRE for months, and obsessing over my grades, all in an effort to make my application as competitive as possible, I'm completely exhausted. The process doesn't seem to make much sense, and whether or not you get rejected seems to have less to do with your qualifications/fit for the program and more to do with plain old dumb luck. I knew going in that it would be hard to get into grad school, but I assumed that if I just worked hard as an undergrad and did everything right, I'd get in. I worked hard, did everything right, and all I'm seeing is rejection.
At the end of the day, I'm down thousands of dollars (not counting student loans), hundreds of hours of my life, and all I have to show for it is a Bachelor's degree that doesn't count for much in the real world. It's extremely disheartening, but I (like you) am just going to have to figure out what to do next and hope that works out better than this has.
