I have been thinking towards the future and have been concerned what would happen should the domain get released and someone else acquire it. Namely they would then "own" the online identity of my family members. This obviously has security implications.
I don't believe gmail and live recycle emails for this very reason.
What other reliable providers can you recommend that don't recycle email addresses. It would be nice to have a memorable user-part, so nothing oversubscribed would be ideal. I am ideally looking to spend ~$150/y for 5 email addresses, but please mention any you know even if they exceed that.
I looked into hey.com, whose family plan sounds ideal - but unfortunately only the primary address is reserved - the others get released for reuse 30 days after termination (you can contact them after termination for reservation, but its not the default). I don't want to leave anything to chance, so that isn't an option for me.
Sounds to me like you're not fixing anything but just shuffling things around (probably in the wrong direction).
There's always the chance something can go wrong... either with your registrar or your email service provider. Personally, I'd just stick with a reputable registrar since it will also ease your concern w.r.t other things (e.g. web).
In addition, if your email service provider goes downhill, your registrar will be able to help you. The opposite does not hold true.
So, can you elaborate on why you think moving your email addresses will solve your problem? Any company can, after all, change policies or flake out; whether they do DNS or email doesn't really matter that much. But the fact remains that email relies on DNS, not vice versa.
Does this help or am I missing something?