Keyword advice on new domain

Looking to purchase new domain for friend and was wondering what the best approach would be, is a EMD the best way to go.

I'd go with EMD if you can get it, if not, try adding a simple word in front of it.... like "all" or "go". From what I can tell, getting the exact match is very hard. You should couple the research with the exact phrase match as well, not just the regular keyword research. Google has been including the related search terms in with the total volume, so it's not accurate unless you do the exact phrase match.

You can rank sites without keywords in the domain.

I had a great ebook that I have deleted, if anyone can remember it, it had something like baby in the title, it was about the maximum number of results google returns when using inurl intitle and so on.

EMD aren't as popular as they once were, in terms of SEO.
If the EMD in .com is available, relevant and not too long I would go for it.

A good thing to do would be to buy an aged domain related to the niche (on godaddy auction you can get one for not a lot more than a new domain).

I wouldn't go for exact match domain these days, EMDs are nerfed by Google. As for me, I'm getting best results for brad+keyword domains... You can register EMD but you won't get as much boost in SERP from that as it used to be in the past.