I wouldn't keep my fingers crossed -- at least for the foreseeable future. The Stack Exchange team decided to put all new Area 51 sites under the Stack Exchange umbrella, and very few have their own URL (AskUbuntu comes to mind, but it has special support from Canonical).
See these related blog posts:
In short, the rationale is that the unique names would diminish the value of the Stack Exchange brand, and won't provide a clue that the site is related to the SE network and is not just generic forum.
Personally, I am inclined to agree with Joel's argument against picking a unique name for the site. Perhaps, if a site become really, really big (think SO size), and a great name comes along, and the domain name is somehow available, then the SE team could be convinced to reconsider. Until then, I don't think this will change.
As Robert says, the name doesn't really matter. It's the community that is important. So instead of spending time and effort to think of clever domain names, we could continue building a great community for seasoned and seasonal travellers alike.
Update: If we come up with a great name, I think we can persuade the SE overlords to incorporate it in the site branding when the site graduates (similar to Cooking-SE), but that probably won't happen for the domain name.