People only use email to create a paper trail. It's not a discussion, as a medium it's a set of assertions and challenges.

If you don't have a personal relationship with someone, questions aren't even honest questions, they are signals of liability transfer.

The cc: line is a kind of blackmail where assholes list the people they are performing for, or threatening to scandalize you to.

Everything about e-mail is abnormal.

It's a performance. The only way to win is not to play. Hence executives eschew it.