I don't understand why Google is pushing two different email clients as the 'main' email clients for users of its phones.
It's not clear that Inbox is the right way to look at email for the majority of users, and I'm saying that as a user/tester. I've had to drop back to the regular GMail app do do things a couple of times and Inbox has crashed twice on me.
Note that the GMail client did take on some of the look and feel such as the (+) widget on the bottom right.
I have also used the pin and reminder feature a few times. I still think it's a weird thing to include with email, but it was helpful.
It definitely feels like a bit push for 'lock in' (not that gmail really needs that...).
If I am wrong, someone please tell me how to do so from a list view.
[A horrible mistake if it's true... Labels are a significant advantage of gmail over many other email clients.]
Sometimes I like to peruse the ones that I've not yet acknowledge receipt of and either j/k + x to select the ones I want to dismiss outright, which I can still do in Inbox, and then shift-i/click mark as read to mark em my equivalent of 'done'...
The actions presented in Inbox will leave the 'unread' business to ever grow and clutter any IMAP connected application and searches like is:unread.
Edit: Maybe the more troubling aspect of the removal of the 'unread' handling is that these emails will certainly go unseen/missed which is bad.