Eh, I did it for a while and while I think the OP overstated the "awkwardness," I didn't find that the effort was worthwhile. I only caught one entity selling or otherwise divulging my address: the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper, oddly enough.

Oh, and someone did hack some FAA database and mine it for addresses.

But that's all I netted in several years. Beyond my main address at my own domain, I keep a Gmail address for mailing lists and other low-grade traffic.