@bob indeed I think that self hosting email should actually be encouraged for those with the means and knowhow to do it. I have hosted my own email for 18 years and problems are quite infrequent and almost exclusively due to anti spam and lock-in measures put in place by the silo providers.
Basically have access to a fixed IP (or a smart host on one), use TLS for all connections and keep a current spamassasin and it works. Send/receive between you and Gmail is the acid test...