I still use Outlook for work e-mail, but yeah I agree that clients for e-mail are just lacking.  I should probably take the time to switch over.

When I was trying out Office 365, the Outlook Web version was nice, but not sure I want to pay like $10/mo or so for it.

I'm using Outlook 2007 and like it over the others that I have used in the past. I'm not a fan of free services so have never looked at gmail, etc.

outlook will copy and paste images into the body of the email, I'm not sure if that is what you're referring to on item #4.

my wife has the same complaint and zips her closed emails every year.

I have several Gmail accounts (personal, blogger and gamer accounts) and I like it over Hotmail and even Yahoo. The yahoo interface is probably the most annoying one so far. I have yet to try the latest Outlook (which I use at work) but have seen my boss use it and compared to the one I have it looks a lot better, but still prefer Gmail.

I also have a Firefox add-on called Webmail which checks all my web emails (including my yahoo and hotmail accounts) and tells me how many are there and will easily open each email on it's own tab. I've tried usuing Outlook and Thunderbird and I just rather check them online for some reason. Now more than ever that I have my Google+ account and it's linked to it.

I use Thunderbird to send emails from email links on the web. Other than that I use Gmail open in a browser.

When I got out of the service, the uni I went to switched from Outlook to Gmail.  Everyone loved the switch.

I agree, Gmail's come a long way and so has Yahoo's mail......still I can't get by with all my mail in the cloud. Outlook wins just by keeping it local.

Gmail also suffers by not having an equal to Outlook's Categories. I tie my calendar, contacts, tasks, emails, onenote, etc. together with categories and the best equivalent Gmail can come up with is labels and multiple calendars....not even close.

Try this in gmail...When I open Outlook I can see 2 ISP email accounts, 2 business wesbsite email accounts, 2 gmail accounts and 1 hotmail account all at the same time.....no forwarding. My filters automatically pull certain emails from all accounts and store them in the specific folders I've setup. My Outlook Today home page lists all mail, IMs, tasks, and appointments for today or up to 7 days at a glance.

If I only had 1 email account then it would probably be gmail and I probably wouldn't need Outlook.

edit:forgot an important part....syncing with my phone.....if the damn phone didn't tell me when and where I'm supposed to be and what tasks I have to accomplish, I'd be fishing 24/7

Don't understand why some people want to keep old emails on their local hard drive versus online. That's a lot of wasted space and it takes forever to re-download old messages if the computer needs a reformat and reinstall. Besides all of my old messages are stored on the Gmail site and are easily accessible with any browser.

Depends on what you define as important I guess. What happens if after you download and store then your PC gets messed up and needs to be reformatted? You lost that email forever.

I know Jafo. I backup my PC. Just don't see the need to back up emails. I have them stored on the web.

and presume to be private.

I have 12 years of archives and the last 9 months in my active PST file. I can't count the number of times I've had to go back and find a particular email or attachment that's crucial in my business. I send and receive several CAD files a week so my PST file is always fairly large. The cost of hard drive storage is extremely low so I have multiple backups and synced computers.

If you feel confident in the cloud, I would just remind you of the gmail accounts that were blanked earlier this year. They did eventually get them back but for a couple days no access for those effected. For 40,000 Gmail Users, Google Has To Leave The Cloud To Review The Tapes

Half the point of using Outlook is using it in conjunction with Exchange--if you're just running a standard SMTP+POP3/IMAP setup, it loses a lot of its appeal.

For personal use I just run my own mail server on my domain. I don't especially care to have Google's ad-bots reading my mail so they can decide what to sell me, and I've got a lot more flexibility than any web mail service would ever offer (hello catchall and unlimited throwaway addresses).

Blocking them from appearing doesn't stop them from reading it.