You're right about that.  Outlook sucks.  Thunderbird is better mainly because of extensibility.  I can't figure out why, to be honest, email advancement seems to be sort of stunted, save for the cool  stuff google has done with gmail (inline youtube previews, view attachment as html, etc.)

Yup.  I use the google stuff, only because it's there.  The gmail is fine and dandy for on the fly stuff.  If I absolutely need to run a full sized client, it's Kontact

Well, you can always add it to the quick launch bar, or in the case of Office 2010, customize the ribbon to add it.

I'd say it's missing by default because almost nobody really uses it. For most people, if they want to edit a message, they're forwarding it, and the message becomes editable when forwarding. Yeah, there's a lot of people who use some oddball tools a lot, but unfortunately just because you use it a lot doesn't mean it's a popular with other people.

Microsoft can't put every feature possible on the screen - that makes everything cluttered and just adds to the feeling of complexity to office.  So, yeah, they do have to decide what get put in the home tab, what gets put in a different tab, what goes into some sort of context sensitive menu, and what goes into the "command well" -  the list of commands that are available to be added to the Quick Access toolbar (and to the ribbon in 2010).

Sorry that the defaults aren't your favorites. It's very hard for any company to create defaults that please everybody.

If you absolutely can't find something, it's always available to be added to the Quick Access toolbar. You don't need to dig beyond that.

Once you place it on the Quick Access toolbar, it'll stay there always. So it's basically a one time issue IMO.

If you have a layout you like, in Office 2010 you can export/import the setup easily so you can copy it to other computers.

I think that's a matter of opinion, though. I'm a very visual person, and IMO icons make commands instantly recognizable rather than having to read every single line of text in a menu. Microsoft has put a lot of work into the tooltips, though. Every command should have a tooltip, and in the Quick Access customization, all of them should have labels.

Sorry that your favorites weren't the ones Microsoft decided to keep in the ribbon.  Rest assured, however, they're likely all to be in the Quick Access toolbar customization, and in the ribbon customization in 2010.

Which is . . . cool. But missing some functionality. Like using groups in a filter, or removing tags based on filters. And still, to this day, I can't get a straight, sensible answer out of anybody what the big, huge problem with the hierarchy was that sooo needed fixing.

Although I can definitely see the point of merging the hierarchy with the tags concepts. Like Live Photo Gallery did. That was cool. Just throwing away the hierarchy in favor of tags wasn't cool at all.

Gmail is nice for occasional email checking, and for cool features - but lacks a lot of the power software like Pegasus Mail have. You can really do a lot of automation and sorting with downloadable clients that you simply can't do with current web clients.

Where is the automation with these web clients? Filters are just tossed on as an afterthought, as if they weren't important at all. It's really quite pathetic how much more useless email clients became when they moved to the web.

If this is the future of email, I'm disappointed. Very disappointed.

I share your beef. 

I spend more time managing email than I do responding/reading/sending.  It's not just that I work for an organization known for an attitude of cc everybody, it's also limitations on server space allotment (10 megs isn't much at all) and limitations on outlooks functionality.  I'd love to tell you that a better client would solve all my problems, but it really wouldn't----only kill the pain a little bit. 

Sad thing is, there is no email 2.0.  You could install xobni or something, but even that is a comparatively shallow solution to what are pretty deep problems. 

I mainly use Office as a graphics tool to make custom graphical calendars and cards, using Word & Publisher respectively.  I never use built-in templates, 'cause that's totally lame & unoriginal.

But anyway the 2007 version works just fine for my needs.  I wouldn't waste the money on an upgrade, at least for now. 

Biggest reason for upgrading to 2010 myself is that I'm a student, and OneNote 2010 adds equation support, which is great for math classes. That, plus students get a good discount as well .

OneNote is probably the one application that doesn't have a good equivalent in other office suites.

I used to hate ribbons. After a while I grew to love it, and hate old menu system. Ribbon system is just so much easier once skill and knowledge is up. 2003 I have been using for years and I still have to search and find some features.

I'm was a huge OneNote fan.  But since I moved to the dark side, I use Basket.  http://basket.kde.org/ 

Looks a bit more messy and unfocused than OneNote.

OneNote is very much focused on the idea of being a notebook style application. It has the organization structure of Notebooks, sections, and pages, which works very well for an application designed for taking notes.

OneNote also has drawing tools, handwriting recognition, and in 2010, ink to math. Makes it an excellent tool to use with a tablet PC.  Even with a mouse, I may occasionally draw a diagram with it. If there's an application that could replace a paper notebook and pencil, this could easily be it.

It also has voice and video recording, which takes a bit of drive space but can be very useful for replaying an important presentation.

Basket looks to be Linux-only, and only really available as source code. And it just looks like a UI mess. And it likely lacks a lot of useful OneNote features. This does not look like a decent application to replace OneNote. From the screen shots and description list, I don't really get the "this could replace a paper notebook and pencil" impression with Basket.

I suppose if you're using Linux, you can't really use OneNote.

But Linux - never really made it to the desktop. And to be honest, it still lacks a bit when it comes to applications. Sure, it has a great browser, and a decent word processor/office suite, but after that, it sorta falls off. The other applications for Linux aren't really anything to get excited about.

I probably would have agreed with you on that a few years ago, but: 

It might come down to usage habits.  I really don't have much use for voice recording or handwriting recognition.  The feature that made the switch a no brainer for me:  the ability to sling notes/images/anything with just hot keys.  That and the super karamba theme is pretty pimp as well. 

FWIW:  I'm pretty certain Basket is available in just about every major distro's repository.  But you're right, you do have to step to the darkside to get a hold of the goodness.  And, I do run MSO on a virtualized xp install but I'm pretty sure it runs in WINE as well.