I used a 1980s internal email system (Philips' roll-yer-own VISTA which ran on MVS): it was actually incredibly good and had way more functionality than pretty much anything I've used since.Zenimax, the 1980s called and want their prototype internal network messaging system back...
Yeah I agree, it's dreadful. Really really dreadful
I can understand not providing a way to refresh mail (because of the potential number of calls to the server), but the way it is now is shoddy.