Domain name registrar question

Please excuse my ignorance I am not as computer savvy as most of you guys, but I am just changing my web host to 1&1 internet (Europe's biggest, they say) and they want me to transfer my domain name from joker.com to them, but they are not the registrar, just the host, the registrar is another German company that they seem to be tied up with.
They will not allow me to just change the DNS numbers at Joker to point at them, they say I need to transfer the domain, The guy who is building my site hosts with them and says he finds them OK and says it is better to transfer the domain as when somones browser goes looking for it they are not passed from pillar to post but are taken straight to the daddy (so to speak), does this make any sense to anyone or not because if it makes no difference maybe I would be better to host with someone who will just allow me to change the DNS numbers with Joker.com to point at their servers. Any help would be appreciated, Thanks.

As far as US rules go, if you have at least 2 of the contacts (Technical and Administrative are the best)

My host wanted the same thing. They wanted to be the person to whom I would pay domain renewals to. As long as you own those 2 major contacts (Tech and Admin), you still own the Domain.

I think your host just wants to be the person you pay for domain renewals. Open up an account ticket with them or give em a call and tell them that you'd like them to be your host, but that has no relation to who your registrar is.

I can't figure why a host would seemingly require their clients to turn over domain registration to them.....not a great business tactic.