I was too late for that, unfortunately and got <lastname>.<town> which also some people don’t comprehend.
Although it’s the capitol and there are sites from public services which use that TLD as well.

What genuinely pisses me off: Prior to that I got <lastname>.name, and there are sites, which refuse to accept it as a valid TLD when I try to register with them.

Edit: I got <lastname[with umlauts]>.<countrycode>, tho as this was available, but those don’t work that well. Or didn’t, when I last checked.

As you say, “at the time, a reasonable decision”. What I don’t understand tho, is, why nobody, for five seconds, maybe thought, how it could be a good idea to just filter this standard address at the SMTP server to be redirected to something sensible inside the org. My best guess is, different departments / sub orgs.

I enjoy apalrd very much, down to earth, deep dive, no bullshit explanatory videos mostly about networking.