[toothbrush]

I don't know if it's worth mentioning here, but i find one level of indirection enough. I have for the last n years paid for various email hosting providers (outsourcing the hassle of set-up, without going into the side discussion of how much hassle that is or not) but been able to switch effortlessly because i own my own domain. I've merely had to switch MX records when i wanted to switch, my emails are all still on my home computer (offlineimap, but i should really switch to whatever the kids these days are using) and my contacts were none the wiser.