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I just moved to the outlook webmail in a large-ish organization. It surprised me that Reply All is the default reply-button, and a regular reply requires expanding a drop down! The ui really encourages the mistake.

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For mails not sent to millions of people, Reply All is the correct default; anyone receiving the original mail should normally see the reply, and narrowing the communication to a subset of people should require thought (and often an explanation).

To help avoid this situation, when sending emails to a large number of people (or a list that goes to a large number of people), if you know that responses should not go to that same set of people, use BCC.

There is no correct default, show both buttons next to each other with the same size! Now you have to open a tiny drop down to get to normal reply, it's very easy to forget that there is another option there just replying to all without thinking.

Probably because "reply-all" is almost always the preferred method of response when responding to a group email.

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