As much as I like and trust Stablehost, even if they gave me a domain for free, I'd still abide by my rule: ALWAYS USE A REGISTRAR. It only $10 per year. That's worth it for the insurance and piece of mind alone, and we do that for many domains, not just the one.
Ironically,
Namecheap is one of the best registrars you can get!
It's their hosting that's maybe inferior to Stablehost. (The jury is still out on that one, as we'd really like to see
Namecheap hosting improve. They've been trying. At this point we need them to address some of the ToS and AUP at
web-hosting.com, which is kind of the same company. We'll probably make some changes on those reviews in the near future.)
Anyway, register the domain with
Namecheap.com
But host it from Stablehost.com, in order to have the best hosting.
There's no rule that you have the same company when one is not an exert at that task. Pick two.
We use Directnic and
Namecheap for all of our domains.