I have said for many years, get your email separate from your ISP for just such reasons, mine is with my web hosting company, but I know a lot of others pay a small fee with a paid service for their email so it is totally independent.
Sure, the way to go but something only a small percentage of private individuals actually get round to doing. It is only when the email service is withdrawn [or changed] by an ISP or you switch to another ISP, that you realize the enormity of the task of using a new email address.
To me getting the shortest domain name length possible, and hosted, is a no brainer but entering the credentials into a email client on a laptop for optimal usage for reliable usage wherever you are in the world, is more of an issue, so recommendations of the following would be helpful:
A) POP3 or IMAP? [bearing in mind emails would not be read on any other device]
B) The settings to use for SMTP?
C) How to have a secure backup of your email client contents?
D) Anything else to consider?