I wonder if his workflow could be even more automated using a MUA like "[nm]mh" (<a href="http://marmaro.de/prog/mmh/" rel="nofollow">http://marmaro.de/prog/mmh/</a>) or "mblaze" (<a href="https://github.com/leahneukirchen/mblaze" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/leahneukirchen/mblaze</a>). The latter is maildir-specific though.