Hello David,
The way things are going these days, I highly recommend you immediately place your list with a 3 party host. That way you'll avoid the "spam hassles" and the "list management" issues. This frees you up to promote your list, and provide solid content. That's how you make money!
I've been on both sides of the fence, hosting my own list, as well as using 3rd party services. Experience tells me start with the 3rd party list manager. They have all the right stuff, double opt-in, CAN-SPAM compliant remove links, etc. The really good list managers also have great relationships with the people who control whether or not your mail gets delivered.
My personal choice is Ezine Director. You can get started with them at no cost. Until you reach either 499 names on your list, or mail more than 499 messages per month, you may use their services for free. After that it steps up to $7.50, $15.50 or more per month, depending upon your volume.
In regards to e-mail capture systems, I've used a "Web Army Knife" app to capture addresses with a single click. It's ok, but I personally am not impressed with it. It does it's job, but I find it rather impersonal.
I prefer to either place a form directly on a page, or at least a link to my subscribe process. In some cases, I use the "e-mail subscription" which is single click. When I feel I want more information, I use a form. Not being a real technical person, I'm slow to adopt the pop-over, slide-in type things.
The nice thing about the 3rd part list managers is they provide easy-to-use forms in html so you can place them on your web page and also use them in your html auto responders.
Now, everyone has their weaknesses, and I have identified mine as the discipline it takes to really get my auto responders done well. I've blamed it on everything from "not understanding" - true in the case of some providers, to "not knowing what to write", etc.
Once I settled in with my current web host, I found they had "unlimited" author responders included in the price of my hosting. Not only that, they had live conference "teaching" sessions. No more excuses! Now I'm the A-R Queen! Reliability and support are tops on my list and this web host excels.
Hmm, better yet, this web host offers a special 1 Buck Hosting Trial. You really gotta check it out.
I hope this answers your questions, David. If not, feel free to contact me and we can do some exploring. We'll find the right way to meet your needs.
Shari Thomas
www.AskShari.com
Your Internet Business Concierge!