My experience here in France has been folks simply use "mail" when speaking of emails, rather than "email" or "courriel". I've run across "courriel" a handful of times in four years, and almost never heard French friends use the word "email". Personally, I like "courriel" as a word, but given that "mail" is the most used word in my francophone circles for email, I tend to say "mail" like my friends and colleagues do.

I agree with your caracterization of courriel as elegant - and I find "pourriel" (for "spam") even more so.