I’ve just noticed Gmail now has a save as draft option. It’s appeared in the last couple of hours. It was definitely something I was waiting for. It’s another step in the right direction.
Other new stuff: the contacts have moved into the main browser window rather than being a popup. They now appear more like the mail folder interface, though the division is purely ‘frequently mailed’ or all contacts, I think that is too crude to be useful, I prefered the alphabetic links. There is a search which looks in the notes as well as name and email.
Another change is that the “Invite x friends to Gmail” link has disappeared back below the fold (or at least it is if you have a lot of labels). Which I think is a step backwards.

Update: The contact info can now include a good assortment of extra info like telephone numbers, addresses, IM, copany, etc. And in multpiple ‘sets’ like home, work, etc. Groovy. I wonder if import contacts will populate those new fields if they are present in the import…

Another Update:You can now do forwarding! Under settings you can “Forward a copy of incoming mail to [emailaddress]” and optionally put a copy in your gmail inbox, archive or trash. And you can do it in a filter.