During a conversation at PC Forum about the difficulties of using technology, especially as it related to configuring email clients, this thought occurred to me: why can't my email client just ask me, "What address would you like to use?" and then look up the POP or IMAP info from the MX record and save it? Why does it make me type it in, espcially if I have an active Internet connection? It could say, "What address do you want:" and then "What's the username:" and "What's the password:" and then it'd be done. Even the most novice user should be able to do that. Of course, that still leaves the user to enter his/her SMTP info, but that's a problem to solve for another day…
Update: this sounds like it won't work, more later. Flying to Chicago now.