I love Firefox.. I'd use Thunderbird but Gmail works beautifully from the site (especially with the Notifier add-on), and Hotmail won't give me any SMTP info to use in any e-mail client other than Outlook or Outlook Express.
I agree that Gmail is an awesome web application. I personally still use Thunderbird with my Gmail address. I can't put my finger on why, but I just prefer it that way.
If you have the information to set up e-mail in Outlook Express or Outlook, you have the information on how to set it up in Thunderbird. You might not have the specific steps and places you need to be in the configuration menu, but the server address, ports, and usernames/passwords would all be the same. If you are interested, I'd be willing to help you set it up.
Exactly, which is why I dont use Thunderbird or anything like Outlook Express for that matter. They just don't work very well with my email addresses. Especially if I get emails with html and I run into other problems with other emails I get. To me those programs are useless.
Most e-mail clients support HTML. I don't understand what you mean by "problems." I've had no such experience at all.
I personally could care less if you use a POP3 e-mail client or not, but it seems that you have a misconception about them.