Gmail does not work for me.
As someone in IT I get some number of automated messages (e.g., cron). With Gmail all I can do is tag them and have a "folder" / view of just those tagged messages. But they also pollute my Archive 'folder' as well.
But I do not want them there, because they are not a priority generally, and they pollute search results.
I want an actual separate folder to file these messages in that is out of the way so as not to pollute the rest of the namespace.
And that’s the issue. The status quo may be the best choice for the lowest common denominator. But some power users could get much more out of something with a different approach. You can’t force a one-size-fits-all ontology onto the masses.
People need to wake up and realize that not all software technologies need to be popular to be successful or useful. It seems people around here assume this without even thinking about it first.
I suspect a system like this would work, but the tags would eventually be used by many as a way to badly implement a hierarchy.