A few days ago, Brent Simmons (no relation) proposed that Mac developers should band together and create the high-power email client that the Mac has needed since time immemorial.

The main reason such a client has never been made, at least since OS X arrived, is that Apple’s Mail client is good enough—and it’s free.

Over the years I’ve used Eudora, Emailer, Outlook Express, Entourage and Thunderbird on the Mac; at work I use Outlook proper. (I have an ever-growing distrust of Google, which keeps me from keeping all my mail with them—though I have used the GMail interface a bit, too.) Out of all of those, Apple Mail (with the Letterbox plug-in) is the client I most like.

I don’t think Mail is The One, though. I don’t even know what’s missing, but I can’t shake the feeling that there’s gotta be something better than this.

And, today, no-relation Brent announced via Twitter that the “president” of the version 1.0 release of this new, open-source Mac email client (named Letters), will be John Gruber.

This is pretty much the open-source equivalent to putting Steve Jobs in charge of the project: you get the sense that the man is an opinionated ass, and you might barely be able to put up with him in person—but holy crumbs does he have the goods when it comes to delivering(/understanding what makes) a “Mac-like” product. I’m officially excited about Letters’ prospects.