Are you sure that US citizens can get working holiday visas in Australia? I was under the impression that most common-wealth countries had such agreements (and for some odd reason Japan is included in there), but that was it. For example, a US citizen can't get a working holiday visa in Canada, but a Japanese, Australian, or UK citizen can.
You're right that it was previously just Commonwealth countries, but I think US citizens were included as part of the US-Australia free trade agreement signed a few years back.
Also, I can't see any tertiary education requirement on the site (just secondary), but apparently you need to show you have access to $5000 on arrival.
Note that the US-FTA immigration arrangements are reciprocal; in exchange we aussies get an exclusive entry to america for under the E-3 temporary work visa program: http://canberra.usembassy.gov/e3visa.html
Yep, the Australian govt. will literally grab you by the arm and drag you over there if you show an interest.
The skills shortage is, apparently, acute.
When I finished my engineering degree and they had a jobs fair the Australian stand was huge - and the "package" of benefits (i.e. crazy tax breaks, free loan car etc.) was mad.
Apparently not all Australians know this either. I talked to a couple of placement firms in 2008 about the possibility of temp or perm work in Australia as a US citizen and was politely dismissed - "too difficult, no jobs, preference to locals", etc. I had 15 years of software development skills at that point - mostly webdev (php, perl, etc), but some other non-web software skills too.
