I transfered all of my domains from Godaddy to Namecheap.com I couldn't transfer my country specific domains like .de and .in and they seem to have only a sub-set of TLD's godaddy supports.

I had a few as well, switched them to gandi.net . All is well.

I wish it wasn't so expensive to transfer domains! Why don't registrars woo me in with a free transfer, and then just make money off my renewals?

So you don't change name services every year for free.

you get an extension for a year on top of your existing expiration date with namecheap for the same price - so I didn't see it as a problem.

It's not. It costs one year of registration, but you get a one year extension on your current expiration.

The doctor has to cause some pain and cut out some good stuff when taking out the brain tumor. Likewise the cancer in the Internet needs swift action to cut it out.

If only namecheap had automatic renewals without having to first put in funds (via paypal). That's the one thing I like about godaddy.. (they charge your cc)

How they probably don't care. If they didn't get a big pile of cash for supporting SOPA, I don't know why GoDaddy does that anyway.

You don't have to wait for the expiration to move a domain. When you move it you get one year added to your existing expiration date, so you loose nothing by transferring early.

That's one information I didn't have. Will GoDaddy pay the new registrar a part of what I gave them?

My business domains are for clients. I do not renew them unless the client wants to. So doing a bulk renew on domains that might end up unused is not something I look forward to. I think, like the OP, i will wait till contracts expire to move them, just like I did with hosting.

But you are one of many.