Sorry, I was unclear. I was thinking not of the particular situation, but of the advantages that made email become such a vital, central piece of many people's workflow (especially near the top). And that in spite of obvious deficiencies. I wasn't even thinking of the human interaction bandwidth reduction (even worse than phone), just how sometimes email fits so poorly with the rest of the workflow.
By 'trying', I meant Lotus Notes, MS Exchange, GMail, etc. I think we're not done there yet ;-). If someone can come up with a not-email that has its advantages ...