Even more on Gmail

This is a nice write up on how Gmail is design to help certain sorts of email-relatd behavior, and hinder others. It's always risky to support some behaviors over others, because you will upset at least a few users, and if you pick the wrong ones, then your application is hard to use and people will avoid it.

The alternative though--not picking which behaviors to support best--is worse. You're left with a highly customizable piece of "architecture" riddled with terrible defaults. No one customizes much, so they are stuck with a program that is very hard to use. Until they leave. Exhibit A: Lotus Notes vs. Outlook.