i stumbled on a promising project (Hellcore Mailer)

the site is whole in polish, they are developing small and very optimized usenet news+ e-mail client that can run on a very old computer

as they say this thing will be released soon, and will be freeware

here are screenshots,
http://betoniarka5.webpark.pl/hcm/screens.htm

an here are the buggy betas:
http://betoniarka5.webpark.pl/hcm/index_beta.htm