For saoir:
I think you're showing your age in the belief that email should remain text based

[small plug to joeo's message]
HTML or rich text offer so MANY more options in an email. When I need to express a point, lighten the tone, make it clear I'm serious, plain text doesn't do it. When I want to disseminate a bulleted list of items, plain text is inadequate (yes, both can be done but presentation matters!) but my primary need for HTML is in responding to emails I've received. During a reply, the formatting is lost, the presentation of my message suffers as a result and I find I must reformat and often retype portions of the message because presentation matters. Time wasted.
I would never fault you for your opinion on this matter, I respect that, however, your self held belief that HTML should not be in email is just that, your belief; in MY opinion, more of us want it than don't. I've taken great care to protect my computer from those nefarious individuals that wish to cause it harm, I don't need my software to be intentionally crippled to protect me; in other words, provide the users with the option to enable/disable and the problem goes away. If you read through this forum or visit it with any regularity, the lack of good HTML support in the clients continues to be a significant issue for many users.
I agree, a simple poll would be interesting.
My vote on this topic must go to enable full HTML support.
Respectfully,
Gene