[smacktoward]

I had the exact same situation after my Nexus 7 updated.

Bonus WTF: the old email app had a view that combined all your inboxes in one places; the Gmail app does not. So for me (who uses several email accounts, none of which are on Gmail) it was a pretty dramatic downgrade.

[doublerebel]

Try K-9 mail. It's based on the original Android AOSP Email app and is open source and free on the Play store.

It has the unified inbox view and a number of other goodies. I've been using it for years without any problems.