Yes totally agree! Email space seems so stagnant and everyday I use them think of ways it can be improved!

The email experience can be improved so much with just simple data mining like collecting information about a project by just looking at project related correspondence. Who has been active or who is not. Great deal of information about user is hidden in those mails, I am sure an intelligent pass through them can tell simple things like gender of the person, career, location, purchase history, relationship status and much more.

Also, another thing makes me wonder how email clients will adopt themselves to manage messages in forms other than text.