Email - a new-fangled business tool...will it ever catch on?

I was reading one of the writing e-zines I subscribe to (and the fact that there are so many free and high-quality e-zines for writers of every type, including porn writers is a testament to the revolutionary internet) and they had a discussion where both writers and editors commented on the practice of emailing in submissions and articles. Obviously, writers, particularly ones from "small" countries like South Africa and India (ie countries without the sheer number of English-language markets that the US offers) were gung-ho for email because it's so much cheaper and easier for them, and I admit I don't tend to bother with markets that don't accept at least the initial query by email. But there was a small group of writers who insisted on querying by mail because it looks so much more professional, or, more accurately, you can control exactly what the editor's going to see so it can be made to look so much more professional.

And there was a larger group of editors who insisted on mail queries only - because their inboxes are clogged up and they never get to the submissions, because they have to print the submissions anyway (meaning the cost of paper and ink is left to them instead of the writer), because of fear of attachments having viruses and of spamming - not a single one of the respondents showed any technophobia about email or writers conducting their business by email, but were more concerned about these problems associated with it (and once I heard their reasons I was much more understanding of them). The problems are not insurmountable, obviously, and email will win out eventually, but it's useful to see some of the reasons why editors are not converting instantly to it as an acquisitions tool.