Thanks for the advice. I may be taking the post too literally, it's true. What I'm really interested in is the conventional wisdom surrounding the desirability of various domain characteristics, so I have an idea of expectations before going in. (e.g. is a CVCV.com nonsense word considered more valuable than a .com with two dictionary words, and by how much?)
Really, though, circumstances will dictate what I offer and when. I'm in no position right now to offer 5k-10k for a domain, so if the $1k offer gets me nowhere, for now I will just use my backup domain of [dictionary verb]CVCV.com, which is available.