I never considered it, actually. It was a moot point till a couple months ago because we couldn't send email from the server. Rtm's strategy for security is to install nothing. Eventually I may expand notifications to have more options for type and delivery method.
I've really wanted notifications for a while now; I figured email was the obvious and standard way to do something of that sort (hopefully you can add that soon).
On a related note, your comment is over a day old now - normally I wouldn't reply so long after the fact. Since I know you have notifications on, late replies are now worthwhile. There's a chance this feature can actually affect the discussion here by allowing people to ponder a while before responding. In the past you could only wait so long before the thread left the front page and everyone moved on; things were likely written in haste.