For the past several months, I've had my Gmail address forward everything to my .Mac address, which I used as my only address. This way I had an IMAP account and could manage my mail from my iPhone, Mail.app, or through .Mac webmail and keep everything in sync. I still used my Gmail address as my main address because I didn't want to go through the hassle of switching (I still get email at my old Yahoo account) and Gmail has a great spam filter. The major drawback to this approach is that .Mac webmail isn't all that great, and I end up using it quite a bit since Mail.app doesn't work through a number of firewalls.
Then Google added IMAP support to Gmail and I was presented with a new option. While it's true that I don't have simple syncing of my address book, I hardly find it necessary since Gmail automatically adds email addresses to my contacts. I still prefer to use Mail.app whenever I can, but I feel like I have the best solution for email in any scenario.
From a business perspective I can see why Google decided to give free IMAP support, because users like me will be exposed to ads whenever we use the web interface even if it isn't the only means we use to check email, and it keeps us from looking for different solutions.
iPhone users can take advantage of free Push IMAP from Yahoo, but when using a computer you're limited to using the webmail interface or using POP3. I definitely think that Gmail is the best choice.
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