Email is never free, which means you have to either pay by viewing ads or pay by sending money. If you have a problem with the lack of privacy at Google, you can always use a provider that can better respect your privacy through the use of a more traditional business model. Most paid providers offer generic domains that don't stand out as much as yourname.com in addition to having the option of custom domains. A generic, paid-provider domain will, in my opinion, come off as less pretentious than a custom domain. It might also imply better stability as it shows your email system is professionally managed.
Having had the same concerns on more than one occasion, I have researched email hosts thoroughly over the years. Two very well regarded providers dedicated to email are Fastmail.fm and POBox.com. Both have massive client bases and will probably be around for a very long time.
Finally, be wary of hosting your email with a general web hosting company (cPanel hosting and the like). Without getting too technical, almost every low cost web hosting provider has something called inode limits which a heavy email user will hit very quickly despite promises of "unlimited" storage. Stick to the providers who are dedicated to email as they will use file systems designed for huge mailboxes.