Email still has its use cases in the modern workplace. Sometimes you need a slower, more detailed communication channel, especially when inter-company communications are involved.
But most of the things the OP likes about email make it a nightmare from a legal perspective. Once a company gets sued over labor/trade secret/IP related things, one result is a strict email (and other electronic communication) retention policy. Some retention periods can be as short as 6 months. Apps are deployed that scour your local storage to make sure you aren't archiving emails off-line. This removes many (most) of the archival advantages of email.
Emails are often front-line evidence in lawsuits. A good example: https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-google-recruitment-ema...
> most of the things the OP likes about email make it a nightmare from a legal perspective
Former litigator here: The late Dr. Randy Pausch mentioned this in his Last Lecture; IIRC, he urged people to keep all their emails. [0] That can be a really good idea — keeping emails:
• will help your lawyer reconstruct a timeline of events, build a narrative to tell the jury that's supported by the documentary evidence, and avoid spinning a tale that's undermined by emails that you didn't keep but someone else did;
• will help make sure your people don't have private stashes of emails that have been deleted from your server but that resurface in response to subpoenas — or search warrants.
• will help corroborate the stories told by your witnesses: Judges and jurors tend to be skeptical of hindsight testimony because of faulty memory and the temptation to shade the truth or even lie — recall how the House's January 6 committee hearings made such extensive use of emails, and also texts. If you didn't keep copies of emails, you won't have that evidence available;
• will refresh your witnesses' memories so they don't testify incorrectly about something (whether in deposition or at trial) and have to correct their testimony — which hurts their credibility.
Moreover: Your opponent's lawyer will likely send you a "litigation hold" letter, meaning you have to suspend all document-deletion programs — and if you don't, "spoliation of evidence" is low-hanging fruit for the opposing counsel to attack you and maybe cause you to lose the case.
Back in the day of limited server storage capability, email "retention" policies (spelled: purging policies) had at least some business justification. That's far less the case now.
To be sure: Footgun emails documenting bad behavior can lead to problems. But the root cause is the bad behavior, not the emails — it's far better to face the facts than to delete the evidence .
[0] https://etc.cmu.edu/about/last-lecture