Leo wrote;

Equally, while I don't like the practice, if you haven't configured your mailer to show you text/plain over text/html (assuming you dislike html mail) in a multipart/alternative message then you're also behind the times. Don't complain about HTML mail when someone is also sending you text, just because you're too backwards to display it.

As someone who picks up the list in digest format, and with all the wonderful email threads, including this one, who can blame me, it would be nice to lose the HTML mail. Of course in digest format the PGP sigs are no problem. The failure to clip unneeded text, including frequently whole messages ala OEs 'out of the box' quoting style, would get many Nanog poster flamed in another forum. It is probably best to treat mailing lists, much like Usenet text only group IMHO, and for much the same reasons. I think Leo's comment on MIME are appropriate for general email. I abandoned OE when I discovered the security settings for email didn't work - long ago fixed I'm sure, but when the gui and the functionality diverge in such an extreme fashion you lose all confidence in the software vendor.