Yes, Email might be ugly on the backend but that matters none at all. The client is obviously what is broken here, we are using the same client paradigm as when a handful of people had an email address! At the very least a better email client should do this:
1) Categorize notifications. Use the common web services as a base, and then look for obvious signs of repeated messages of the same type.
2) Prioritize people who are in your contact list. In fact this functionality should be broken out as a separate app. Actually, the same app that we current only use for text messages. I could rant on this for days; why in the hell are apps separated by what protocol they use rather than what the use case is? Ridiculous!
Spot on, this is what we do on www.post.fm (sorry for the plug) - organize your email around people & organizations, and then offer distinct user experiences based on various use cases (going through notifications, participating in threads or groups or chatting one-on-one with people you know).
This HN post shows how passionate people still are about email. I have to admit reading the comments has been like reading through my own thoughts for the past 2 years we've been working on this. I can't wait to share what we've done with all of you.
PS Email is indeed great. The protocols - not so much. Unfortunately most email clients are limited to using IMAP as the email API, which in some ways limits what they can do with email. Hotmail started as (and probably still is) just an html client for IMAP. So the UI is built around IMAP functions - get a list of headers, etc. Forget running sophisticated SQL queries against your inbox, the user experience is dictated by the API designers - never a good choice.
1) Categorize notifications. Use the common web services as a base, and then look for obvious signs of repeated messages of the same type.
2) Prioritize people who are in your contact list. In fact this functionality should be broken out as a separate app. Actually, the same app that we current only use for text messages. I could rant on this for days; why in the hell are apps separated by what protocol they use rather than what the use case is? Ridiculous!