Robert,

>Using up vertical space is a pain - HMTL wraps stuff horizontally, so having a menu bar down the left-hand side is no problem: having it at the top means I lose more screen area for actually reading and seeing the messages.

So, you would rather see Internet Explorer use sidebar buttons?

>I find it clumsy because I now have to hold my mouse over one of the tiny wee icons to find out what it does before I click on it.

I technically agree with you on this, it would be easier with large buttons and/or labels. I was just accepting of the way it was as it wasn't that big of deal for me to recall what the buttons were after a few times.

Regards, Renoir