I wonder if it might be appropriate to start a Gmail Wish List thread.
I have submitted several suggestions but don't know how my suggestions
would be viewed by others.  Perhaps by submitting them here, as well as
by feedback message to the Gmail Team, we can get a consensus as to
what changes would be most welcome. Just as a suggestion, if you think
well of a change mentioned here, you might want to send a feedback
message encouraging the Gmail Team to put it on the list for
consideration.

One of the things I'd like to see them add is delivery and read
confirmation both within and outside of Gmail.  Email is sometime
rather unreliable.  With other email accounts you can request a
delivery and/or read confirmation.  As I understand it, a delivery
confirmation is just a return email indicating the message made to to
the destination email server and into the recipient's inbox.  A read
confirmation indicates someone with access to the destination account
has actually looked at the message, even if only to delete it a moment
later.

Another thing I'd like is to have them change is the way options are
presented when a message is being viewed.  Right now, when you are
looking at a message, you must click on the "More options" link to have
access to the "Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Add sender to
contacts list | Trash this message | Show original" links.  I'd like at
least "Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Trash this message"
available as soon as the message is displayed.  One way this could be
implemented would to have this list of links on the right side under
the "Expand All" link.  Another way would be to make the "More options"
choice either persistent so once selected it would stay selected for
any new viewed message throughout and between sessions.  Another
possibility would be to add an account options choice of either
"Display All Details for Viewed Messages" as opposed to "Minimize
Details for Viewed Messages".

My understanding is that Gmail allows attachments as long as the total
size of the message is 10 Mbytes or less.  I also understand that
executable attachments are not permitted and right now that includes
executable attachments in archive files.  I can certainly understand
limiting aggregate message size and I think it just good common sense
to block executable attachments but I'm of the opinion that zip or
other archives with executable content should be permitted and that the
handling of messages with prohibited attachments should be changed.
Right now the message is rejected and at least sometimes the sender is
notified.  I'd rather let the message through to the recipient with a
text message indicating that "One or more attachments have been deleted
from this message because they violate Gmail policy on executable
attachments or because they would cause the total message size to
exceed 10 Mbytes."

My final suggestion for the moment is to be able to sort the lists of
root messages and the results of searches.  As the number of stored
messages increases, it would be increasingly helpful to have them
sorted by Sender/Receiver or Date either ascending or descending.
Ideally you could also sort by both sender/receiver and date so the
messages would be grouped by sender/receiver but within each
sender/receiver they would be in date order.

Well, thats my list for the moment.  Anybody out there care to comment
on these or add their own pet items to the Wish List?

Regards,

Ed