I think I didn't communicate that part well. I don't get status emails because the people who should be sending the emails are holding meetings instead :) These are "should have been emails" meetings. For example, you don't need to spend 30 minutes in a room when there's a status update. You could send an email instead and I could read it at my leisure. That's 30 minutes I don't need to spend in a meeting. If I have 6 of those a week, that's 3 hours of my week back.
TL;DR people should send status update emails instead of holding meetings whenever possible
TL;DR people should send status update emails instead of holding meetings whenever possible