Well, I did get a hyphenated domain prefix to work. But as it turns out the server where our demo version is installed has a screwed up internal dns. So the IP was resolving to some weird IP address. Since I work in a different location, I don't see the same issues on my local workstation. Now I feel silly.
I still don't know if the port will be respected in the url yet but until I get the dns fixed, I guess I can't really test it.
Cheers,
Marty