I love Joker personally. I can't speak to their resistance to corporate pressure, but they've been a great company to deal with.

See my post here on how to get $7.75 domain names without hassle:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=340826

EDIT: Here's a link that will give me about 70 cents of your first order (I've been recommending them here for almost a year, so I'm curious to see if people will sign up, etc.) http://www.dynadot.com/?s7h8k6z57v36m8e

Gandi.net ... Not the cheapest, but reliable as hell and not based out of the US.

I'm moving mine to name.com (great support)...