Michael calls it on Chris Hanson's observation. Take note, emailers of the world. At work, I am forced to use Entourage as my Exchange client under OS X. One thing that is nice about Entourage is the preference that lets you turn off the formatted, Outlook/Exchange-type email that includes HTML, and have plain-text, Internet email, complete with quotes. It's not pure text; HTML mail still gets through, but it offers me enough of the plain-text, Internet email experience that I feel like I'm using a real email client.

Personally, I have long maintained that HTML belongs in browsers, not my email client. One of the reasons I use Mailsmith is that it never shows HTML in my email, stripping it in to plain text, if possible, and at worst keeping it as an HTML attachment I can open in my browser.

Scot Hacker wrote an excellent article that sums up all of my reasons why you shouldn’t use HTML in your email, and he offers tips on several email clients/services for turning HTML formatting off. Bookmark this one, boys and girls. (Thanks, Lee!)