setzer - 12:42 am on Aug 1, 2012 (gmt 0)

Exact match domains are still very powerful... in one case, I have about 20 links from high authority sites pointing to a particular page and competitor B with an exact match domain still outranks me with a fraction of the link power.

So yeah... in my experience... you usually need double the link power, maybe a bit more to beat an EMD in the SERPs.

This can be a non-issue for a lot of brands. But if you plan on getting by primarily through search traffic I'd go EMD, at least initially.