I feel and share your pain. Additionally, the GMail policy used to be to 'roll over', so once you reached {whatever} limit, old email would drop off the end -

I feel and share your pain. Additionally, the GMail policy used to be to 'roll over', so once you reached {whatever} limit, old email would drop off the end - a perfectly sensible option in many scenarios. No longer - if your mailbox is full, incoming items will be rejected. And if you don't use the web gui, you'lll have no idea - until senders eventually get in touch regarding bounced email. It's a diabolically poor end-user experience, begat of arrogance - we may be the product, but we're not fools.