Setting the privacy and security issues aside, I wonder why do so many self-respecting hackers use the Gmail web interface (instead of, say, fetching their mail via IMAP and use another client). Dedicated mail clients like mutt can be much more efficient (keyboard-driven) and are a lot more customisable (run macros, pipe mail through external commands, etc.). I wonder why so many hackers aren't put off by Google's "one size fits all" approach.
Gmail's keyboard shortcuts are really pretty nice. hjkl to move around, enter to view a message, y to archive, m to mute, r to reply. That's a pretty damn good start.
off-topic, it's a little weird how it's expected that "true hackers" must become ill at the very sight of a mouse.
Yes, I know that Gmail has some keyboard shortcuts. I'm also aware that you can even customize them to some extent, but the flexibility has nothing to do with mutt's.
To give a concrete example, I am moderating some institution's mailing lists through a pretty exotic system, and I rely heavily on my mutt configuration to accept/reject mail and prepare rejection mail. In one keystroke, for instance, I prepare a reply to a certain MIME part of an incoming email notification and pipe it through a script to add boilerplate text and edit the message headers automatically. I wonder why so many hackers prefer Gmail's convenience to this sort of flexibility.
As for the mouse, like the keyboard, it is a tool which is appropriate for certain tasks and less appropriate for others. I think the keyboard is more appropriate to deal with email.
Two notes: you appear to be unaware that gmail can be fully keyboard driven (press ?). Second, after years of using mutt I very, very, rarely miss the extra features: 99% of my use was doing things like viewing attachments or links, which is implicit to webmail
