First, I disagree that we don't have today a "significantly better experience" with e-mail than we did 10 years ago. Gmail was not even available 10 years ago [0]. Do you remember what Outlook, Yahoo and Hotmail were like back then? There's a reason GMail was able to scoop up a massive market share. There hasn't been a complete paradigm shift, if that's what you mean, but I don't feel it has been necessary.

Second, I don't "hate using" e-mail and I don't feel that I am alone in that.

Your basic argument boils down to saying that e-mail is broken, but I don't agree with that premise.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gmail