I woke up to the discovery that yesterday's text had been spread by some Webos Twitter accounts. One response was a comment linking an article about enabling Gmail, and saying the commenter had no idea how mail could "just work" for me without using that. It was closely followed by the comment that perhaps I did not mean Google mail and contacts. That was true, my main mail account is on a server and service provided by my web host, and I added a clarification to my text.
I found some amusement in thinking that in a world where people who have even used Webos stand out, I could find a way to stand out even within that group by not using Google services as much as average. (I did get the fun of standing out to the rest of the world too when people spotted the Pre at work and wondered what exactly was going on.)
My main discovery today was Macaw. I mentioned briefly how surprisingly good the Twitter client phnx was. Macaw is a port or fork or something similar of phnx, and it is even more updated. The latest release, which I am now running, came out only a few months ago, so now pretty much everything I have thought to try just works. Amazing.
I still have no idea how I will solve my phone problem, but if this little love affair goes on I might just have to give the phone back to make any progress at all.