There are some registries that have *no* delay after the expiry until the redemption period begins, and can charge more. IIRC the ICANN rules allow this.

One thing for co.uk people to be aware of is that the procedures have changed here - they are writing to all owners of Detagged domains and if they get no response they are deleting them. When a .co.uk expires the registrant now gets an invoice or the opportunity to transfer the Tag to a new ISP, otherwise it is deleted.

I Detagged a few domains a couple of months back and they have just started deleting them. You can tell roughly when they will be deleted because it will be marked "SUSPENDED" in the whois and then deleted 6-8 weeks afterwards (this is random for good reason!)

edit: I have a few domains with Total Registrations, they are pretty good but if you have mail/DNS server there's not a lot to choose with most of them.

Gareth