Email is the new Fax

You are completely right.

Email is slow, too formal, and misused over the last 2 decades.

I want to get your feedback on Hop (I have no association with them) http://gethop.com/ . Its basically turning emails into instant messages.

I think its a great idea on paper because it creates a transition point for your senders/recipients not to give up email - and on your end, you have a different UI and UX.

Then after thinking about it as well as re-watching their demo video, email is no longer associated with "entertainment" or "connection" - like you mention. We have LinkedIn, Facebook, Skype, Facetime, WhatsApp, (if younger, Snapchat, Instagram.. ) etc... So for Hop to do it for the average user, I think it just doesn't work.

There can be a play here for Enterprise though - where organization communication need to be more fluent, and efficient - thus leading to the short burst of replies (skip the 'Hi John' and skip the 'Best, Tim'), automatic threading based on discussion/wall-like layout, integration of directory + Sharepoint / Dropbox onto the fold, etc...)