Assuming you're not restricting yourself to those three possibilities, I'm with namecheap.com and I'm pretty happy. Serendipitously, they're also offering $3.99 transfers until the end of today.
I have quite a few domains with Namecheap and so far so good. What I like is that their UI is not dumbed-down ("GoDaddy-style") and you can find that darned DNS setting without fishing through 5 layers of navigation.
It also helps that they've been giving away private registration for free.
(I am not affiliated with them, just a customer, YMMV)
I agree with your central point, but of all the adjectives available to describe GoDaddy's UI, "dumbed-down" isn't the one I'd pick.
What else could we use? Perhaps "functionally retarded"? Or maybe "overwhelmingly dreadful"? Or better still "Designed with a Kafaka-esque hatred for humanity that puts government bureaucracy to shame"?
One year, I accidentally let a domains expire and fall out of the grace period to renew. Thought I was screwed, but decided to contact their support anyway. After explaining my dumb mistake, they got back to me and said the domain was back in my account. I know it probably wasn't a big deal, as it was only a few days out of the grace period, but I felt they did more than was to be expected.
The UI for their control panel is just awesome. Much less clutter than the other registrars.
