In the last fifteen years I have used multiple domain registrars including Network Solutions, 1and1 and GoDaddy.
I started out using Network Solutions because everybody had to and for the most part they provided quality services. They were reliable but extremely expensive compared to other registrars who provided the same performance and customer service.
After working with Network Solutions, I moved to 1and1.com. Their control panel was somewhat cumbersome and customer service was horrible, so I decided to switch away from them. When I did, I transferred my domains and talked to customer service online which took forever to accomplish, but even worse was finding out that they expected the customer to go in and cancel the package even though the domain was already transferred signaling the domain was no longer hosted there.
After I transferred, I never heard from them again until getting a letter from a collection agency for $35 in unpaid services. This continued for each domain that I transferred away. I guess this is 1and1.com's way of punishing you for moving from them and saying we never want your business again.
That was enough for me and I totally washed my hands of 1and1.com. I would strongly recommend avoiding this company at all cost.
The current registrar that I work with has been great. That company is GoDaddy. They have awesome customer service, the domains are fairly easy to manage and the price is fantastic. The performance has been flawless. I would highly recommend using GoDaddy for your Domain Registration only.
GoDaddy has been less than satisfactory when it comes to performance of web hosting, specifically with Joomla Content Management Sites, often having downtime, supposedly because the site is not setup right, however ever since I changed to Rochen Performance Hosting, I have had zero downtime and the site has performed almost flawlessly.
So there you have it, I'm using GoDaddy to host my domain names and I don't see any changes coming in the future. How can you go wrong with the company that hosts over half the domain names in the world?