Plain text passwords.
Plain text passwords.
Mandating specific security mechanisms isn't future proof. Authentication is almost a side issue to JMAP itself. Getting a securely authenticated and protected channel is phase 1, sending and receiving the JMAP protocol items is phase 2.
The reality is that almost everyone is sending plaintext passwords over SSL these days, and the reason isn't that they hate you - the reason is that it means they can bcrypt the password on the server side.
An interesting factor about most of the challenge response protocols out there - the server side needs to know either the plaintext password or something pretty reversible about the plaintext password. That's how the server can have a little chat over the wire with your client about the shared secret that they both know.
Since my security protocol design credentials aren't that much greater than the average internet commentator, I don't trust myself to design, or the average client writer to implement, a fancy security protocol that nobody has used before. Tried and true please.
And your final paragraph is the reason I posted my original comment in the first place. Don't design a auth/security protocol when you design a mail protocol. Delegate to OAuth, move on. (Then again... debate rages there, too[1]. Auth is not fun(tm))
[1] http://hueniverse.com/2012/07/26/oauth-2-0-and-the-road-to-h...