I think the ship has mostly sailed on email -- most sites use email password recovery, so that choice isn't up to you unless you get a different email address for each site.
You should definitely use 2-factor authentication for your email!
You're right. Gmail does an excellent job with ensuring account integrity. I've lost and subsequently recovered access to Gmail accounts, and I must say they do it right. And like you said, I especially appreciate their two-factor auth.
I hope lay people are coming to realize the security importance of their email accounts.
You should definitely use 2-factor authentication for your email!