[zdfjkhiuj]

>People switched because the features and interface were far superior.

No one should use the web interface, let alone "techies." Use a real email client and everything behaves identically.

[JauntyHatAngle]

Not really, portability was not easy to accomplish back then when you were constantly shifting between work stations and different setups.

Even to this day, I don't know of an easy way to switch between fresh devices all the time and use a "real" email client.

I don't see the problem with someone preferring gmail - personally the +suffix tagging was what I still use to this day.