Ratings and Reviews : Listing
Thunderbird is one of those OSS projects which exemplifies one of the frustrations found with many OSS projects; it's almost there but isn't quite there yet. Thunderbird's core, reading, managing and sending email is top notch. It's POP/IMAP support is rock solid, it supports multiple mail accounts in a sensible manner and it offers several different mail reading paradigms that fit different reading habits well.
However in the years since its inception some trivial features which are almost universally implemented in other email clients have remained outside the grasp of Thunderbird. Reply to List, I'm looking at you as the poster child.
Such functionality issues could be resolved through the plug-in architecture except the documentation to begin modifying Thunderbird is hopelessly mired in its Firefox roots. Finding documentation on modifying Thunderbird invariably leads to documentation on how to modify Firefox with Firefox examples and Firefox Addons and Firefox Tools.
I truly feel there is no client better than Thunderbird. However that is not to say that I could easily envision better.
Just wanted to share that the Reply to List function has been added in the latest Thunderbird 3 nightlies. Take a look at bug 45715. Please try it out and submit bugs or share your thoughts about how it works.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45715
I used to use Apple Mail, but switched to Thunderbird for 2 reasons. 1, the OpenPGP plugin. 2, Apple Mail takes too long to do something as simple as open an email - it's as if it has to re-download the mail every time I open it.
Since switching, Thunderbird + OpenPGP have been amazing with the exception of one infuriating bug[1], but I have hope that will be resolved soon.
IMO the configuration and user interface (sidebar on left side [Thunderbird 3.1.10]) are a little clumsy and could be improved, and I'd LOVE for that bug to disappear, but I'm going to keep using Thunderbird for my signing/encrypted mail needs.
[1] http://superuser.com/questions/288201/thunderbird-3-1-10-often-goes-unresponsive