Randy,
I've been applying for 17 years in a row, but as I recall, they didn't start awarding bonus points until sometime in the late 90s. No real preference from them....just another "chance" in the drawing. I actually applied about 2 or 3 years previous to that 17 year run, but skipped a year or two then.
As I recall, I usually bought 3 groups of 10 chances since they've been allowing that. Essentially 30 chances plus the bonus points chances that I accumulated. I think a NR can buy as many groups of 10 chances that you are willing to spend the money on!
They allocate 10% of the available permits in each WMD to non-residents. This year there was a total of around 3140 permits, so all of us non-residents were competing for 314 permits. In years gone by, there were a lot less permits available, so competition was really tough, since I guess that a similar number of NR folks apply each year.
Just like playing Lotto!