I recently switched my color theme to a darker color and I love the way Outlook 2010 looks now (not that it was bad with the default color theme.)  This is what it looks like:

There are plenty of people out there who disagree with my opinion that Outlook is the best Email client out there.  There are also plenty of people who don’t know how to get the most out of Outlook.  There is also a small subset of people who don’t work in Microsoft-centric environment but for most of us, we do work around Microsoft products.  If you are still using Microsoft Outlook 2003 (which has an end of life in April 2014) or Microsoft Outlook 2007 you should consider giving Outlook 2010 a try.  There is a free trial available from Microsoft at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/try/

I must admit that for years I tried not to use any alternative to Outlook and I was fairly happy with replacements.  However, over the past decade I have embraced the product and I am much more happy reading my email with the product.