Well it seems that google will indeed be making public it's mail service quite soon with press reports coming up on a lot of different places.
Bottom lines:
1 GB of storage
Ads served according to what is in the email.
Update: Review available: http://miscoranda.com/102
I have yet to see this work, its kind of hard not imagining this to be the new warez swapping service with that much storage.
One of the best things about this service is that you kind find your email back a lot faster then with filters.
Luckily there is a program out there which already makes finding things in your email a lot faster and easier.
You can download it at: http://www.x1.com/download/download_ie.html?c=find
It's really really fast and helps alot when you have a lot of email.
Another way to manage mail which seems quite promising can be found here:
http://www.emailorganizer.com/
This is an application which automaticly creates category's of emails without the need for manually setting up directory's