One thing about the navigating directly to an IP address, that will work as long as it's a dedicated IP because you're circumventing the name server, i.e. you can go to cnn.com via http://157.166.226.26/ and not be redirected to www.cnn.com because you're not being processed via the name server.

Several in our space come to mind: Google's Certifications (AdWords, Analytics, etc.). Eloqua is also offering an Accreditation program to customers and planning to open it up to the public: http://www.eloqua.com/services/eloqua_university/Eloqua_Accreditation.html

The shopping badges are also popular: verisign, hackersafe, etc.  The most successful B2B badges all seem to really represent something -- knowledge, security, etc -- instead of being a badge for badge sake.

In the case of Gap, not only is their brand name short, but it is also the brand of their clothes.  People are going to be looking for Gap Jeans and the like.  If you're in a similar situation where it's your brand name + product that signifies a sale, it'd probably be wise to have the brand in the title tag in that case, but you'll want to consider whether or not it's worth it across your site globally.

In a case like Harbor Freight, their name is some what long, but they use it on their location specific pages because they have stores, they get localized searches, and they are going to pull in visitors, and the usage adds value. On product specific searches it makes fewer appearances.

In most cases I'm a fan of leaving the brand name off of the title tag as EOGL mentions. It's probably in your URL and all over the page that someone is going to see if they click on your search result, so you should do as much as possible to get that click. His examples are great.

Also consider that people searching for your brand already know about your site and if they don't they still have a VERY high likelihood of interacting with your site at some point.  With generic searches you want to do as much as possible to expose your brand to people that are unfamiliar with your brand, the ones that are the farthest from knowing who you are and what you do.  If you track how someone arrives at your site via search, you're very likely to see this progression:

1. Generic search
2. Generic search + brand or domain name
3. Brand name search
4. Purchase

Your brand is important, but having it in your title tag has very little influence over steps 2-4.  Focus on getting those initial visits.