Adrian, as has been pointed out here, Outlook is not the only software that
has trouble with the GPG mime format.  That kind of lets the air out of your
rant, but what you say is true more as a general effect than a specific
conspiracy.

Outlook hasn't really been updated much since 1998 or so.  I think one thing
we sometimes see from Microsoft is the war between the technical types who
would like the software to do it's job well, and the marketing & strategy
types who are focused on the software as a tool to sell more software and
control the market.  If we don't update Outlook, we won't have to include
any "strategy features".

While I haven't been as close to the front lines of MS development in the
past four years, from what I've seen there has been very little in the way
of improved functionality, or features that actually did anything
significant in any of their software.  It's mostly been changes in
presentation, how the existing features were accessed.

I think that's sad, because prior to that they really were making great
strides in functionality, and those advances are still driving development
in the Linux community even now.  Evolution is working specifically to
become a system that will rival Exchange/Outlook, but it's not there yet.  

What will drive the market when the Linux tools finally catch and pass
Microsoft?