i think free hosts are great for testing. it allows you to save moeny and share it with frieds and and let other see and if its free other webmasters can help you and stuff like that.
testing platform. i think IXwebhosting will be cool. they allow easy switch from windows to linux. so you can test most the script with them. email with catchall supported as well. nice features. look at business plan. 8 website, 8 free IPs...2 free domains. i using it