I'm really considering abandoning my firstlast.com domain (used for email and personal blog) and transitioning to firstlast.ccTLD so that I can stop giving Verisign money.
Just make sure you pick a ccTLD that has not already been bought/taken from the country in question. If you don't, it could be operated by Verisign anyhow (see .cc, .tv, etc)
I've had $lastname.org since 2004 but plan to move to $lastname.us for similar reasons. I did register $lastname.org until 2029, though.