The only problem that I see with gtalk is that you can't make a group... I've gotten 150 or more emails in an hour period from my friends (thank god for conversation view!), but this wouldn't work with chat because you can't chat to a group. Also, another problem with gmail is you can't have html / pics / animations / rich text in general in your signature. However, the benefits of gmail (and the fact that it is much better than the paid versions of popular email clients) make it worth it. I suggest you go
here if you want to beg Google for anything.