[lsc]

eh, it's a security vs. reliability issue. You are right that a home-hosted email is going to be less reliable. Others are right that SMTP is pretty resilient, but not infinitely so.

A home mail server, from experience and from the experiences of others, would work okay on receive. You want a static IP (or a static-IP VPN.) at a minimum, and the first thing you need is to make sure you aren't on the dialup-user lists. But that's an outgoing mail issue, not an incoming mail issue.

that's the thing, though, the outgoing mail issue, ultimately, is more difficult than the incoming mail issue.