The latest Gmail features are "yawn worthy," at best.

Here are my initial thoughts on each:

Reply on top

Eh. I don't need this. I almost always hit "R" on the keyboard, to initiate a reply message. Point and click? Who does that any more? Keyboard shortcuts are where it's at.

Embarassment-reducing new message notifications

This one actually caught my attention. Quite often I'll be replying to an email, and I'll get side-tracked, and leave the reply form open, without being able to see if any new messages came in. Specifically handy for email groups, where replies come in frequently.

I hate repeating something that someone says right before me. That always causes a "doh!"

Forward all

I never really have a need for this, but it's nice to know it's there.

Chat even when your friends are offline

I still do not grasp this concept. If your friends are offline, why would you want to chat with them? More importantly, how can you chat with someone that's not there?

The only scenario I can think of is network interruptions, when you suddenly get kicked offline, and whatever messages were sent to you don't show up. This seems more like a "crash recovery" feature, though.

Otherwise, if my friend is offline, I send them an email.

Get Gmail on your mobile phone

This always existed, although not as a Java app. I imagine this approach is much faster, but it obviously doesn't work on every phone.

Overall, this last feature seems like it was just added to make it an "even five."

After all, who wants to say: Four new features! Five sounds better.