I don't understand why a server isn't an option for you.
To me:
* people I communicate with are 99% on non-free providers. So my emails are
compromised anyway.
* from there, Openmailbox/mail server vs Gmail/Yahoo, not much of a
difference, I suppose. Well, free software on a personal server is still
better. But The server might take a bit more work, for no real gains. And the
libre provider can still act use your data, in theory.
* Encryption is the key (pun intended), but it's not easy to understand/use.
Still the best option around.
Is my reasoning flawed somewhere?