No, a couple of years ago Hotmail offered a special Premium account where you could pick your own domain name and it would work the same as Hotmail. For instance jd@ johndoe.com works as if it were jd@ hotmail.com. They don't offer this anymore.
Ugh, then I guess for the time being you are stuck. That's some quality lock-in they accomplished.
I still think it would be easiest to set the hotmail address up to forward to a new account, then you can gradually transition. The major issues I have with changing addresses are:
1) Telling people what the new address is.
2) Still having "access" to the old account for things like password resets on websites, etc.
The forwarding accomplishes this well, because you can send anyone you care to that your address has changed, and if you miss someone the forward will still result in your getting the message. The forward also covers the case that a web site password reset gets mailed to the old address. You can probably, if you really want to, set the new gmail (or whatever) to send your reply-to address as your old address as well. This way you can still, essentially "masquerade" as the old address for as long as you need to until you can make the whole transition.
What's truly unfortunate is that microsoft now owns the domain that your current address is set up on, so you'll never be able to actually own "your" email address.
Anyway, it seems like your original request for software to use hotmail like a POP address has been answered, and then some. As an aside, this question is probably a better fit for the "Apple Software" forum, unless you were wanting help programming your own plug-in, etc.
-Lee
