When people don't title their emails; when said emails are concise to the point of sounding curt. Email is a form of communication that expresses emotion. When you send me an email that reads like a shorthand business memo, don't think I'm not judging you.
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People actually differ on this, believe it or not. Well, empty subject lines are pretty irritating, I agree. But there are any number of differences between email style and "best practices" and whatnot. Consider , for instance.
A couple days ago I was with some grad students from the office who are about 4 years older than we. The phenomenon of IMing someone sitting right next to you rather than speaking to them came up. Some of the (just 4 years) older folk said "yeah, we used to do the same thing, but with email."
A lot of people have a very different view of what the email medium is. I remember reading somewhere that older people (boomer+) tend to view email as a digital version of traditional handwritten correspondence, which requires thought, style, and craftsmanship. People our age tend to treat email more as a note on the refrigerator. In particular, it's expected that the recipient will see the message and deal with it promptly, but not necessarily instantaneously.
Our sisters' peers, on the other hand, appear to consider Text- and Instant-messaging to be almost as immediate and informal as in-person speech. Ignoring an IM or a Text Message is more similar to ignoring a person trying to talk to you in person.
Of course, as I think on this, I might just be making it up, but I'm pretty sure I periodically see various studies about the use of different communication media across age groups. Anyway, that's just to say that to the extent that you receive emails from your students or supervisors, their email etiquette may very well be part of their larger culture. Which is not to say that computer's should emit electric shocks to anyone who tries to spell "you are" with two characters.
I've actually taken the time to discuss with my students (theoretically the digital generation just after my own) the options in how to compose an email, at least in an academic/professional context -- but reminding them all the while about how writing standards, especially electronic ones, change with time...
...I did this only after my own advisor (the digital generation before my own) gave me a similar talk.
What is surprising, I think, is that it was someone else, of my advisor's generation, who sent the offending email that inspired this post. I agree with all of the points you're quoting here, of course: and want to note as well that, because there are so many unspoken generation-specific rules like this which are embedded in us, we apply them backwards.
What I mean is, had the email come from the generation after mine, I wouldn't have batted an eyelash.
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