[khalstvedt]

I agree, you can construct a pretty flexible search system with the existing Gmail implementation. (disclosure: I work at a small startup trying to address email search and archive organization). How many rules do you have set up to achieve your (arguably very reasonable) workflow?

However, to perform a successful search with specific constraints, you must either:

1) Remember a keyword

2) Have a label for the particular constraint you want to use

Our little startup, SolNovus (http://solnovus.com), has been investigating how to make a couple power-user functions like this more accessible. Our priorities are:

1) Fuzzy topic search: make keywords more forgiving

2) Analysis and visualization of email graph: sift through related threads and see the impact of search constraints, represent scale and organization with more than an inbox counter