Can't argue with your final point at all. However, my thread is more "can we do it differently?" instead of "maybe we shouldn't do it at all" I agree, HTML is

Can't argue with your final point at all. However, my thread is more "can we do it differently?" instead of "maybe we shouldn't do it at all" I agree, HTML isn't right for email. Some different approach, possibly a markdown variant, with decent style support (basic css like background colours, fonts, like markdown themes in a code editor), why not explore that. There's no reason emails need to be plain. RTF is a horrible format, markdown is much more prevalent and easy to make a simple UI formatter that obeys the standard for non technical users.