Plenty of good suggestion have been shared around. This is what I use. If it sucks more or less, I guess that's on the eye of the beholder. 1. dovecot - Used for IMAP access. POP is off, SSL is available, not needed if only local access is used.2. fetchmail - Used to aggregate all my external emails into oneplace where dovecot runs3. procmail - to tell fetchmail where to put the fetched mail. 4. msmtp - to send email. I have postfix running but it is ipv6 only.5. bogofilter - spam control.
I use many email clients on this set up and it works well. I got intrigued by qmail and I would read about it, it soundslike a handy software to know about. Luis