I agree that it's possible that the correlations and causes have been muddled (but note I'm not willing to conclude they are). But I do think that an introducto

I agree that it's possible that the correlations and causes have been muddled (but note I'm not willing to conclude they are). But I do think that an introductory email is low status. High status people don't introduce themselves. They are known, or others introduce them. What may be better is to look at emails from people who already know each other, but have some power imbalance.