If email is important to you then you should have your own domain, then you're free to move it wherever you like! You can even set up GMail to forward your mail

If email is important to you then you should have your own domain, then you're free to move it wherever you like! You can even set up GMail to forward your mail to your new address. I moved to Google Apps (all the benefits of GMail without the lockdown) while it was still free, but I'd definitely pay for it if I had to. When I changed addresses I created a filter and label to mark any messages that were sent to my old address, I went through the list every so often and updated my email address on the websites I still cared about. It takes a while when you've been using an email address for a long time so I'd start on that as soon as you move over!