Jer.net,
I appreciate your candid assessment of the domain. This was my assessment as well. The pros that the domain does have is that it is brandable and that it is a rare 3 letter word. Those are pretty good qualities to have.
With this in mind though, one has to take other things into account in order to correctly assess it's value. 'Gum' gets searched via overture 17K per month as opposed to 'bubble gum' which gets 33K. Furthermore, it is a '.net'..which means any branding that you do to the domain will certainly fall over to 'gum.com' with chances of the '.com' seizing a good share from your hard works. 'gum.net' if to be successful, as you said correctly would need to be developed...and the purchasing of the domain is only the beginning in order to turn the domain around to start getting solid returns on it. From a speculator's point of view, given it's track record, it has not done so hot...and therefore will be tough to get a stellar value for it if no development is done since appraisals will surely take into the account it's past historical trend and demand for the domain.
With all this said and done. I am willing to take on the risk of developing and turning around the domain...but all this comes at a risk to me. We both have a correct assessment of the domain...anyone can speak of it, but it's one thing to assess something, and another thing to assess something with your money on the table.
To make it worthwhile for you, I am willing to go $4500. If you want to talk further privately, we can do so....or we can continue here. Don't think it as a lost in the domain, think of it as being able to free up your money so that you can make more profits from your other deals.
Warmest Regards,
Gorilla_Bob