Yeah I was thinking about this the other day. It is annoying. I am in the market for another Gmail-like provider that doesn't require phone numbers, doesn't pester me about Google+ alerts, etc.
I was looking at fastmail.fm. Mail.com (what you mentioned), looks interesting as well.
I'd be curious what the current generation of tech HN is using. If you search through its history, you find a lot of email alternatives, but they're older threads. I'm curious if anything new has come out that is a favorite of HN.
I'd like to setup my own mail server, but frankly, I feel like I'd accidentally leave it wide open to spammers that know a lot more about email than I do.