[staunch]

You really can't do that much. Pick a good provider.

I'm using route53 from Amazon. It's dirt cheap and they no slouches when it comes to reliability. It's still relatively new though.

[PizzaPanther]

If you use route53 aren't you still storing the nameservers at Namecheap in this case, thus, not eliminating the problem since they are still part of the route?

[staunch]

Nope. Only problems with the root servers or Amazon would be an issue.

[18pfsmt]

That's a good point: direct link: http://aws.amazon.com/route53/#pricing