Thanks for the response, Tim.
First, I should mention that I have been using SmarterMail since 3.x if I remember correctly and with many domains and users. I do see the importance of Abuse Detection, Intrusion Detection, etc.. which is why I was pleased to see these feature implemented in previous versions. SM13 improves on them but only marginally.
1) Passwords: We've been using strong passwords for years (thanks SM4). Good practices (like disabling non-encrypted connections) have kept our passwords safe and it has not been necessary to force resets and such. Nice features to maybe use someday though, sure.
2) Abuse Detection: SM12 works pretty well. Great to improve, but this has not been a problem in my experience, only once or twice in something like 10 years and existing features did aid. Automatic actions arguably should have been implemented in the first place.
3) Blacklisting: This would have been useful once about 4 years ago, but definitely not a daily issue for me. I don't want to be manually managing blacklists all the time anyway and there is always a proper firewall for these things.
4) Restore User Data: Can recall only once where this would have been useful (deleting "Sent" somehow also deleted "Sent Items") so not a big deal..
5) Secure Aliases: I don't understand why someone would want this feature but ok..
So maybe some people with highly targeted domains and really dumb users are really excited about these features but I am not. I feel like I got burned this time around paying ahead of time for upgrade protection.
In the case of IMAP search the first mention of it is 9.5 years ago and there have been other mentions as well:
* http://forums.smartertools.com/threads/no-imap-search-function.2569/
* http://forums.smartertools.com/threads/aquamail-and-imap-searching.38892/
And my own original thread which never received a response:
* http://forums.smartertools.com/threads/imap-search.41544/
I also submitted a ticket through the "Product Feedback" page as well on April 4 to the same effect.
What I am asking for here is not some obscure feature, it is one that is part of the IMAP4 RFC and used by all major mobile and tablet clients, possibly some desktop clients, and implemented by many other competing servers (Gmail, Outlook.com, IBM Domino, Dovecot, etc...). Since I have requested it there have been two major version releases and no mention of ever supporting this part of the IMAP spec.
Again, thanks for your response, but please reconsider despite my sour tone.