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The general trend in poetry over the last hundred years has clearly been towards the increasing dominance of free verse. However, I don't see any point in trend-chasing when it comes to poetry. Most poems that make it into print are either in self-published chapbooks, or from tiny boutique presses that publish for the love of poetry, not for profit. Given that commercially successful poetry is almost a contradiction in terms, there's absolutely no reason not to write what you like, and what you're good at.
With that said, you shouldn't be contemptuous of free verse, some of it is quite good. I'm also puzzled by the fact that you seem surprised to encounter it, given that it's the dominant format for contemporary poetry (and has been for quite a while --it began its rise to popularity in the early 1900's). Although it typically doesn't have set meter or rhyme, good free verse does have other types of structure --perhaps in the assonances and alliterations, or maybe just in the pattern of metaphors. Consider Billy Collins, one of my favorite living poets --his poems rarely have an identifiable meter or rhyme scheme, but if you read them out loud, it's clear that they aren't without structure of some other, harder-to-identify type.
As to why the older forms have been losing out to free verse --it's probably for the same reason that modernism took over in the world of art. The old styles had been thoroughly explored, and people felt like they weren't saying anything new anymore. With that said, the best free verse poets are typically well-steeped in the old forms, just as the best modernist artists were trained as realists. And just as with art, there will always be an audience for anyone whose work is extraordinary good, no matter what style they choose to work in.
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