The fact that I can actually just reply to the email and get progress negates the annoyance of a CG starting point.

The amazing thing is how many senders fool themselves into thinking they're fooling users. The first commenter's description ("designed to appear handcrafted") seems to fall into that category.

I hear senders cite an email open rate or click rate, but there's no way to measure groans or "Do they think I've never signed up for a Web app?" reactions. (Heck, maybe it does help for consumer-oriented services, where many users actually haven't ever signed up for a Web app before.)

But you're an early adopter / power user, exposed to this plenty, and most users aren't that savvy.

Though I also find these types of messages annoying, they do seem to get to a higher interaction rate from normal users.