I agree that it's an email problem, which is why I wrote a whole article about why email can't be made secure with any reasonable client. But email is overwhelmingly the messaging channel PGP users use; in fact, it's a common-cited reason why people continue to use PGP (because it allows them to encrypt email).
out of curiosity, would you like to share why you think it's an email protocol problem? Because I see that more as an email client problem