I'm planning to start a business called, let's say, Icarus Systems (it's in the aviation sector). I've already bought icarussystems.com, but I really wanted icarus-systems.com as it's prettier and more legible, if more difficult to remember.
It turns out that icarus-systems.com is owned by a medium-sized company who just redirects it to their main site, say paperclips.com. I got in touch with their CEO, and it turns out they acquired a small company called Icarus and that's how they ended up with the name.
Long story short - they're asking 5000 US$ for the domain name I want. That's a month or two of runway for me. I've tried haggling the price down to no avail. Would you pay that much for a hyphen?
I'm not worried about their icarus-systems.com getting more Google rank because in the long run the term Icarus doesn't even appear on paperclips.com. It's more of a cosmetic issue in my mind....