I lived in Dallas and Austin for many years, and have never even heard of a broker being used to rent a personal apartment.
On the flip side, we've had about a 50/50 experience of needing brokers in New York in the past six years.
In Savannah, finding an apartment was as easy as driving by a house and checking it out. Craigslist was the de facto method, though. Never any misrepresentation, or other real estate trickery going on. As a student of the local private art & design school, my enrollment there was as good of credit as I ever needed. Often a jobless student could walk into an apartment with the landlord and sign the paper right there, without any background checks or financial statements. I thought this was reality.
In NYC the fact that brokers required bank statements, tax returns, credit check, background check, pay stubs, plus all of that and more from a co-signer (if needed) was downright disrespectful and degrading. Not to mention paying a broker 2 months worth of rent meant they never tried to get you a deal. Don't even think of using Craigslist in NYC.
Now I live in an apartment in Seattle. It's on the west side of Queen Anne hill, with a view of Elliot Bay. We found it on Craigslist. The price was so good we knew it was a scam and almost wrote it off entirely, based on our experience in NYC. Turned out it was exactly as pictured, and even better. We've lived in it for just over 3 years now and have no desire to move.
If brokers are the standard way of purchasing in major cities, then that is a real shame. I find them to be pure slime, absolutely the worst people to be dealing with. Anything that disrupts their industry is a good thing.
SF/NYC/other coastal cities may be a different world, but rental brokers in my neck of the woods are just not used in my experience.
The company name in the fine print of the lease is probably something generic like UDR or AMC or Essex or "Home Properties, Inc" or "Equity Residential". These REITs are brokers: they manage multiple apartment complexes in multiple cities in multiple states: http://www.rednews.com/2014/01/top-10-u-s-apartment-reits-as...
These REITs are constantly merging, acquiring and/or swallowing each other whole, consolidating into bigger and bigger conglomerate brokerages. The bigger they get, the more they can throw their weight around and control rents. Especially in "trendy" markets.
They tend to spam craigslist. They tend to require lots of fine print and have fees for everything, with contracts that are far too big and lengthy w/credit and background checks, excessive deposits, always always pet fees, and always at least a year when you sign the dotted line.
It's pretty scary what's happening in this niche: it's like they've figured out the trick is to steal any savings you might be able to build (rent hikes ~8 percent or more per year), thus trapping people in rental hell.
Brokers do tend to spam craigslist and any other avenue because they are motivated to be the first point of contact for a renter. They'll also buy up common domains and adwords to show up high on generic searches like "luxury Chicago apartment". It's not uncommon for them to represent themselves as ownership by using unlicensed pictures and vague wording.
I don't think I follow your last two paragraphs. A year is a standard lease because there are significant turn costs when somebody moves out and often the apartment sits vacant for a month before a new tenant moves in. You can usually get a shorter term but you'll pay up proportionately. Pet fees cover the damage that pets often cause and security deposits are heavily regulated in most major cities so that they can only be applied to legitimate documented expenses. In Philadelphia, for example, you are entitled to twice your security deposit back if your landlord doesn't return it with 30 days or provide you with a list of itemized expenses.