He himself says he uses a small email host at $40/year, but paying for Google Apps is essentially the exact same thing as what he is doing.

He point of "its just IMAP" is mute. Gmail supports IMAP. Regardless of how reliable it is on and ongoing basis, if you look at it for the ability to export your data, its the same as what he has.

It sounds like his point is to use a smaller service. A smaller service would be less complex, but services that are bigger are likely popular for a reason.

A car that is a best seller is worth considering buying. You don't want to avoid a best seller just because its a best seller.

No, I certainly read the whole thing. With Google Apps you get all the support (SLA, uptime, phone contact) along with data ownership (by using an offline mail client for example).

…which you also get with Google Apps.

There's no way to set it up without owning a domain!

Which you can also have with Google Apps.