Use the strategy that works best for you. Tailor each deal to match the client's needs/budget. Look at KRL & DomBuyer, differently strategies, but both play the game successfully. Obviously with large domain deals, a payment plan works if you're happy with it. One of my most creative deals included a 4 year payment schedule, but the client could always pay me off earlier and receive a discount. They ended up closing the deal after the 3rd year because they wanted to save money.

I was happy with both scenarios and it was win-win all around, except that they still haven't done anything with the domain name. (?) I even had to remind them to renew it. insanity.