Well some domains I have paid a lot of money for, but then I have made it elsewhere from sales of others. I am cheap in a lot of regards, but not when it comes to domains.
The way I think of it, if I am going to spend countless hours developing a site, and building it, I want to build a brand that will eventually fetch big dollars. I dont want to be spending all my time building a brandname, that will not be worth a lot.
Hence I stay away from .net domains. I dont mind long domains though.
I personally wouldnt pay $5 for ekosoft.com
Just to give you an indication, the domain lastminutetraveldeals.com is on auction, and the bid was around $12,900
perhaps the domain doesnt need to have the word soft in it.
If you like the word echo, what about echocode.com that was previously registered and someone let it expire.