Can't say too much about WP, I use it as a stand-alone and it makes not much difference in that case,-I'm not a typist who needs short-cuts or speed.
Peter from Essex and Stilly River Sage mentioned Pegasus Mail, and I did use that for a while, trying to stay away from MS products and virus writers. It was irritating on my old P2 machine, drifting all over the screen, and I must have had something turned off, because when I reverted back to Outlook I received over 300 eMails, dating back up to 3 months. A trap for young players. Mostly spam, fortunately.