I’m nowhere near as Internet-famous as The Merlin, yet I deal with nearly as much personally-addressed email (not counting newsletters & crap like that).

My problem is that email is NOT one-to-one, and to this post’s cogent list of disadvantages of the medium’s flaws, I’d like to add the CC: field. Whether it’s that special person who thinks his latest 1,000-word rumination on The State of Things is worth everyone’s time and attention, the unending stream of “CYA” CC:s, or the inevitable dozen abuses of “Reply All” that follow, I suspect that my wheat/chaff ratio would triple instantly if we took away CC: and BCC:, limited To: to a maximum of three recipients, and wired “Reply All” to one of those gizmos they use to electrify cattle fences.

It goes right back to your point about making the email about the recipient; CC: can rapidly dilute that quality until it’s about none of the recipients.