Endless IMAP problems

First let me state that I have been investigating many different cms products, and every one of them (including the major ones, like Joomla) have various problems. If I can get email to work in one, the forums don't work. If I can trivially get forums and email to work in another, there is no functional calendar. In the case of Drupal, I thought I had gotten it all. Then I found that there is no email package available except for Webmail Plus and a hodge-podge of broken "supporting" modules.

The situation is ridiculous. I have installed/uninstalled every combination of about six different modules (phpmailer, two different IMAP modules, including the alpha imap one supposed to go with Webmail Plus, and various additional modules needed by the above.) Phpmailer constantly crashed my Drupal instance until I disabled and removed it. Two different SMTP modules could install together but neither could work. Then, removing either of them produced white screens until I got rid of both of them. But the biggest problem is that it appears that NO combination of modules can check my gmail account using secure IMAP. Every combination of modules I have tried produces various errors and warnings, often fatal to the entire system.

Currently I'm trying imap-wu api, which is the recommended method. Every time to try to change my password, which apparently triggers webmail to check my email, the system hangs for a ridiculously long time (like five minutes) and then returns the following messages:

# warning: imap_open() [function.imap-open]: Couldn't open stream {imap.gmail.com:993/notls}INBOX in /usr/share/support/modules/mail_api/contrib/imapwu_api/imapwu_api.module on line 66.
# warning: imap_status(): supplied argument is not a valid imap resource in /usr/share/support/modules/mail_api/contrib/imapwu_api/imapwu_api.module on line 86.
# warning: imap_check(): supplied argument is not a valid imap resource in /usr/share/support/modules/mail_api/contrib/imapwu_api/imapwu_api.module on line 172.
# warning: imap_fetch_overview(): supplied argument is not a valid imap resource in /usr/share/support/modules/mail_api/contrib/imapwu_api/imapwu_api.module on line 158.

All of this is followed by the generic error that in effect means: "the system is clueless":
# Your email password is not correct. Please click here to set it.

Can somebody explain to me how systems like Joomla have dozens of email programs that just work, without error, "out of the box," and with minimal configuration; how egroupware (otherwise a piece of garbage) can get email trivially using any number of easy to install/configure packages; yet here in Drupal 6.x there is ONE mail program, and it's a buggy piece of trash (witness the countless problems many people have been having with it across the Net) depending upon 6 to 10 other modules, at least two of which are ALPHA products??? Oh, and let's not forget that this sick combination of trash also will crash your system constantly as you try to figure out the magic combination of modules and settings to get ANY part of it to work!

How hard can it be to create ONE module that sends and receives emails, as contributors to both Joomla and Egroupware seem to have mastered again and again? Is there some low-level stupidity to the design of Drupal that makes this project THIS hard to get right??? There are COUNTLESS email clients out there! How hard can it be to properly port one to Drupal?

I have devoted a week of nights to this ridiculous situation, and I've now reached a point beyond frustration to downright anger. It is beyond belief that it can be so complicated, buggy, and alpha-based to get something as basic to a cms as email going in Drupal.

If you guys have any ONE thing to prioritize, how can you overlook the sorry state of affairs regarding Drupal email? Is there ANY more important and basic functionality than emailing? I took this for granted in all the other cms packages.

Now I see that Drupal 7 is coming out, and there are still only a minority of packages available for 6.x. How about getting 6.x working right before leaving that entire module-base behind again? How about getting us an email system that doesn't take a Ph.D. in computer science and the patience of Job to set up?