Its actually over a year since the icons or ‘buttons’ so well designed and well used on other mail software if not software, have been missing from Hotmail let alone Live Mail.
Simplicity may have been a demand of the user consultation but they must have been pretty ancient as nearly a generation and a half have now, been ‘reading’ icons on screens of ever decreasing size for 20 years. 
I was almost relieved to find the uproar on complaint posts; basically asking,
Where the hell are my icons! Why words?
As a designer I can assure Microsoft, that Mackintosh’s invention of icons is now universally used for good reason because logos and symbols are the essence of brain reaction speed!
I will light a candle immediately and meditate for your speedy recovery Microsoft because you are visually, driving people away.
dwk
......over the edge 
Hello Dave. Happy New Year and thanks for the comment on my blog.I don\’t know what\’s going on with microsoft but I am not comfortable with it. Hopefully, I can put up with it in order to stay in touch with my friends but they\’ve really messed up this time. As I said to another friend, there are other ways of staying in touch, Microsoft could lose an awful lot of customers.
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Well said, Dave.
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