In considering whether or not I want to join the big web o' trust and put my keys on a key server, I got to thinking about how it would affect my e-mail address' exposure.  I generally try to keep my e-mail addresses from being too public, so as to avoid unwanted spam.

Along this train of thought, I began to wonder:  If (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) a PGP key is really meant to be a representation of my *personal* identity, does it *really* need to be associated with every e-mail address I'm going to use?  Does it even need to be associated with an e-mail address at all?  If not, what are the pros and cons of either implementation?

By my understanding, if someone receives a message that has my digital signature on it they should (in theory) be able to verify that the message came from *me* regardless of the sending address.  Similarly, if someone wants to send an encrypted e-mail to me, they can (in theory) do so with my public key and be assured that no matter where that e-mail goes, only I will be albe to read it.

So, what's the real deal here?