>The ones that I really hate are emails that when opened or only previewed in Outlook Express, automatically launch IE and navigate to a specific web page.

Elmer,

I'm also a fan of the delete key and message rules, rather than missing something I may want to see.

In Outlook Express 6 you can go to Tools | Options | Read and check the box that says to Read all mail in plain text. I think this will prevent the behavior you describe above.