Exactly: provided that $350,000 was a decent price (which doesn't seem too unreasonable) and the fair value does not decline they now have a $350,000 intangible asset on their balance sheet that will not likely decline in value.

You can't say the same for a similar amount of put into high end office furniture, for example.

For one, a glorious failure taints the name. Not many (any?) ships are called "Titanic" anymore. I tried to find good examples of famous failures having their domains reused but wasn't able to.

webvan.com still exists as part of amazon.

pets.com points to petsmart.com

An untainted domain is an asset, which is why there are many squatted domains. A tainted domain is a liability.

c.f. cnet & com.com