If one doesn't like AOL's policies, isn't the best solution
to simply boycott AOL, or at least move to someone else for
email delivery if you don't like the way they handle it?

As for paying for email, well, as long is the cost is NEGLIGIBLE
to legitimate users, and high enough for spammers, I don't really
see the problem. After all, I pay about EUR 70, total, for all
internet costs (6016 kb/s DSL connection, VOIP, hosting for a
few domains, SMTP server for outgoing mail, backup MX server
independent of my hardware, etc etc). (Since I run a lot of
hardware 24x7, the cost of power is actually more than the EUR
70 mentioned above for non-power costs).

What the actual breakdown of the costs is doesn't interest me.
I don't know how the service providers calculate, and I don't
have to know or care. As long as they make enough to stay in
business, and the cost is not too much for me, we are all happy.

So, it wouldn't matter to me if I were to pay, say, 5 EUR more
for email and 5 EUR less for the backup MX server or whatever.

I pay (as part of a package deal which includes much, much more)
for the use of an SMTP server which, of course, is NOT an open
relay. When I started out, I sent stuff directly from my own
SMTP server, but, since I (now) have a volatile IP address (with
modern DNS services such as the highly recommended
http://www.dynaccess.com/ the cost of fixed addresses is too much
to justify the small gain in functionality), I noticed some people
couldn't receive my email, since they only wanted email from
trusted SMTP relay servers.

I think that's OK. In an ideal world, yes, this wouldn't be
necessary, but probably the most effective way of stopping spam
from reaching your eyes (as opposed to stopping spammers, which
one should still do since it clogs the network, but this is more
difficult and beyond what an individual can do) is to only accept
stuff from SMTP relay servers which do not send spam.

If I want to send more than I do, for example, a newsletter to
thousands of people, then I can pay a bit more, register a sender
address and also send these through the same server.

In essence, I am paying the provider of the SMTP server to keep
his server spam-free. I think he does a good job at a fair price.

All email reaches my computers directly. For a small fee, the
same provider offers spam-filtering and virus-scanning. (I prefer
to do these myself. I run virus-immune systems and prefer to have
information on the spammers for when I have time to take legal action
against them.)

Brad, you seem to be mainly a free-market kind of guy, so why not
just encourage AOL customers to move to a mail system with someone
else more to your and their liking? After all, there is nothing
like a boycott to get someone to change their policies, especially
if they lose more money than they make through the new scheme.