Letters to the Editor
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Pros & Cons Correction
I've used both extensively and I'd like to add a note about Gmail.
The "conversation view" that you mention doesn't actually group conversation topics so much as it groups conversation threads. If I write two separate emails to two separate friends both with the subject line "celery" it will not group those two emails together. That's a difference worth mentioning in a high volume email environment. What it WILL do is group all my emails within one conversation. That's nice but not quite as clever as what you're implying. In fact, the thread clustering has actually been a problem in a work setting wherein twenty exchanges can be made in one conversation, sometimes out of the literal thread but within the same topic, all within a two-hour period.
I've used the same Yahoo account for over eight years. Many things have changed in my life but Yahoo almost never, ever lets me down. I've never lost a message or had data go missing. Furthermore, I'm inherently suspicious of the current belief that "newer and shinier" equals better. Google has some impressive tricks up their sleeve, but it hasn't proven itself yet.
Also BOTH systems use your private information as a marketing technique. This is actually where Google's prowess as the rulers of information technology turns around and bites us, the users, in the ass. It scares me to think of what Google can do with 1000's of my private emails, which are never EVER actually discarded by their system.