[Rotundo]

I disagree with you vehemently.

The recipient will get what I deem to be appropriate. I will not, ever, stoop to the lowest common denominator of giving in to the tyranny of Outlook and its ilk.

I'm sending text, not a complete website to the recipient.

[rsync]

Both you, and your parent, should consider changing your view in favor of Postel's law:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle

"... be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept ..."

[alkonaut]

I don’t see how that applies to be honest. The default has changed to html a long time ago and that’s what people expect.

What would be great would be if clients detected when I send an email with only text and just chose to format it as plaintext then BUT importantly, that th e reverse happens in the reading client: it formats it the same regardless, so my text email doesn’t look strange. Needs to render with the same font etc.

it almost never happens that I send a plain text email though since my org like so many prescribes the use of an image as signature. Not to mention that 9 emails out of 10 contains other images anyway.