I use notmuch for email in emacs. I use w3m to process HTML emails for viewing in text, it does a pretty good job especially with tables, which are still used a lot in HTML email.
And the search.... fantastic. Best email search and virtual folder capability I've used on any platform.
I'll try that w3m viewer - good idea. I used to be on rmail but then decided to take a step back to mh-e