The flip side of that is what I sincerely have believed for many many years: I don't understand why people flaunt their read counts.

I read all the email from people on my team.

I also receive a lot of email from various sources in the organization as well as external sources - and sometimes all I'm looking for is the subject to decide if it's worth my time to open it and read it.

I feel that not all of that non-team based email is worth my time opening, reading/scanning, then archiving or deleting - time that adds up over the years: How many days of your life have you spent organizing your inbox so that your number is 0?

A stack is a beautiful thing :)

If I don't care about it, it goes away with minimal effort after a little time.

I don't want to be a slave to my email inbox - and at the same time I value the sources of the incoming emails that I don't always read - I read some just not all - and that's ok with me and I do that when it's socially acceptable (not trying to be a jerk about it).