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It's partly inertia and knowing that it would be a hassle to switch email addresses. But also, I think it's a phenomenal service. It's quick, and has great ui. Great spam filters. Great security - recently google added two-factor authentication as an option, which I love, since so many services are tied to my gmail account. In addition they have "shadow accounts" for services that need your password to function (usually other email clients) - so if you setup IMAP on your phone, and your phone is stolen, you can simply disable access for that client. The total package is great.

GMail isn't just a mail client though; it's a web server and a client with push email, calendar syncing, etc; it's basically a simpler version of Exchange.

Are there any good alternatives? Are their any alternatives at all?

Yahoo Mail has pretty much the same services and it's based on Zimbra. It's pretty good.

Gmail is a brand name, it's like having a .com.

You can use a gmail.com address and still download all the emails to a client running on your computer.