>(a) As I read about postfix, I see that I have two (at least) options for
>    local mail delivery.  One is "Maildir/", which apparently breaks each
>    message into a seperate file.  The other is the conventional UNIX
>    single-file mailbox.
>
>    If I have no reason to prefer one or the other (no long-standing
>    history on my own system), is there a clear, technically prefered
>    choice?  If it (as is often the case) is "it depends", then I
>    guess my next thoughts are towards reliability (very important,
>    but I don't expect significant mail volume to stress any limits)
>    and interoperability (I'd like to be able to fool with a range
>    of mail software).

http://cr.yp.to/proto/maildir.html

>(b) Given that I have complete control over the computer to which mail
>    will spool, what kinds of options do I have for remote access to
>    my mailbox?  I know I can do POP3 and IMAP.  In my home LAN I can
>    also do NFS exports, but I'm reluctant to become dependant upon that,
>    since I'd like to access my mail from my laptop (which won't be my
>    mail server) and would like to be able to do so even when my laptop
>    is in another network.  I'm reluctant to NFS-export over the
>    Internet.  (^&  Or can NFS be made secure over the Internet?  (I
>    believe at leas POP3 can use ssh for security and privacy, yes?
>    Is IMAP secure, or securable?)
>
>    Any other methods?  I think we have at least one or two other ways
>    to share files, don't we?  How secure are they?  I could also set up
>    a web-mail interface, I guess (but that would force me to use the
>    web-based interface...)

I use pine as a mailclient, downloading the mail to my desktop  machine 
via fetchmail. I can access the mail from just about any machine (from 
windoh$ using terra-term or Putty) via ssh. Call it reasonably secure.

>    Any recommended POP3 or IMAP servers?  Or, for that matter, web-mail
>    servers that I might want to try?  (^&

Squirrelmail is a great little webmail tool. You can run it through ssl to 
make it secure, and it can handle a decent load.

Courier IMAP is great, lots of features and really configurable. For POP, 
I would just use palin old uw-imap.