[Steltek]

This highlights my true desire: I want to copy structure, not specific font choices. Or in other words, I want the HTML tags but not the CSS.

Rich paste annoys me most when the content I paste has a different notion of what plain paragraph words should look like. And "ctrl-shift-v" isn't helpful if you're trying to paste in a list or something.

[strongpigeon]

Some of the copying of font style makes a bit more sense if you consider that Outlook used (still use?) Wingding to display smiley faces. Now whether they should have done that in the first place is another question, but for the sake of back compatibility I can see why it's important to keep.