There IS a way of “hacking GoDaddy” to get their prices more in line with 1and1.com.
If you buy 5 or more domains you get free “privacy” (i.e. proxy registration) for the period of the order, so if you buy 5 domains for ten years each (the maximum) you get ten years of free privacy. Use the codes GB1, GB2, or GB3 (I forget which does which) to get the $6.99 price which equals 1and1.com. The PLUS side of GoDaddy is that 1and1.com won’t do a registration for more than year at a time, so if you want to lock in your domains you pretty much have to use GoDaddy.
Don’t need 5 domains? Add a $.99 .info domain to get your order bigger. Works great.
