I am a user of Hotmail and Fastmail too (okay, I admit that I just signed up :)) I just thought that I will join in to clarify that Hotmail does seem to offer SMTP because you can send messages with Outlook Express (which is what I use). You can’t do that with a Fastmail account. I really need this so I don’t think that I will consider switching over. Hotmail’s thing is called HTTP or something and not IMAP. As long as you use Outlook Express, it is not a problem.
Fastmail has a lot of features, but I like the Hotmail interface and most of all the ability to check and send email without having to use webmail all the time. Hotmail also doesn’t add taglines as long as you don’t use the webmail for sending messages. This can’t be done with Fastmail. Also reliability wise I agree with Lentini that Hotmail definitely should be better with their Microsoft backing.