I understand about the hop. You have to take in response time and hop count. As you probably know the more in either will be bad.
Can you do a tracert to a GoDaddy server to see what the hop count and response times are?
One thing about the DNS servers. I have used several companies. While some others might offer it now, GoDaddy was one of the first ones I used where you could completely manage your DNS for free and it didn't put a stupid ad at the bottom of your web page like some hosting companies.
Fred
