POP is not perfect (could a new version be created - POP4??) but IMAP is not always the solution. For one thing it makes switching mail provider very hard when you haven't got a copy of all your historic emails - with POP you just change settings and away you go. Ms are also always trying to turn off POP access for the Office Outlook program. Hmmmmmm It's almost as if both they and Google run two of the largest subscription email hosting platforms which would both benefit if it's harder for people to change provider... Of course the less you download the more you have to store on their servers and the more you store the more you pay and of course every day brings more emails to store....