> it probably is not a good idea to use email (of any form) as long term storage. For hotmail or yahoo mail, I agree--but one of Gmail's founding principles is

> it probably is not a good idea to use email (of any form) as long term storage. For hotmail or yahoo mail, I agree--but one of Gmail's founding principles is never having to delete an email--they say so in as many words. If it's not a good idea to use them for long-term storage of emails, they've failed (although having anything truly important in only one place does seem like an egg basket failure).