…so here I am, running the Windows 7 RC under VMWare on my mac laptop, connecting over the internet to a Windows XP machine under VMWare on my linux server at home, in order to do Outlook development. I guess somewhere deep down inside I can appreciate that this is more efficient than having a pair of actual windows boxes, but somehow it just doesn’t feel right….
Maybe someday people will just stop using Windows/Outlook, and I won’t have to do this any more.

People use Windows? don’t you mean they use web browsers running on Windows? ;)
Web browsers, and it seems, they read email in an email application as well.