Opera M2: So Close and Yet so Far

I just downloaded Opera 7.11 for Linux in the perhaps vain hope that its new M2 email client would swoop in and deliver me from evil.  Ok.  Not evil exactly but my current Linux email client woes.  There's definitely some good things here.  And outside of my own Inbox Buddy software, its the first new thinking in email clients that I've seen in quite some time.  I can definitely tell there's goodness here.  So why did I just run it, download some mail into it and then promptly exit.

I don't know 100% exactly but here are some observations:

• I Don't Want Opera.  I'm a web developer.  I use Mozilla / FireBird and I don't need Opera the Browser.  I don't want Opera the Browser.  And I can't get M2 without Opera the Browser.  I don't care if Opera is there as a rendering engine but it feels like M2 is a second class citizen to Opera the browser.  I don't need or want bookmarks, "Rewind", etc.  Want to get me to use Opera?  Then first hook me on M2 and I'll come gradually into Opera.  By embedding M2 inside Opera, you're effectively hurting if not killing M2.
• UI differences that serve only M2 not the user.  Opera makes a big deal about forcing you through the tutorial for M2 and its "access points".  As best I can tell, the sole reason for this was because M2 is embedded in the browser itself.  Pull it into a standalone mail client and these go away.  But even so the cool new things in M2 stay.
• Ugly.  While beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, I found it pretty damn ugly.  Like most of us I live in mail so that really bothers me.

I'm very frustrated with this.  I want to like M2.  Damn it I really do.  Its cool and there is good stuff in there but its so intermixed with Opera itself that its frustrating.  And shackling a good product to an unsuccessful product isn't going to fly. I can see the product managers for M2 fighting to give it its own existence and then I can see them being overruled under the manifesto -- "This will drive Opera sales".  Ah... No. 

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