FastMail is amazing; there were a few hiccups early on with the native iOS productivity apps but its been smooth sailing for years now.
If you can, definitely try to run your own mail server for the experience but start of gradually, e.g. relay outbound email through an smtp service, and slowly add the different layers such as spam analysis, filtering, etc.
There are /so/ many layers to email these days that if you try to do it all at once you'll spend way too much time on just keeping the wheels from turning.
FastMail have been an excellent email provider, and support has always been responsive and useful.