Google Analytics recently had a big upgrade and it's unbelievably better than the old version. Count on the new Gmail to be a real upgrade and better in every way than the old, and also to allow you to use the old version if you want, like Analytics does.

Google is definitely investing in mail service as a web application because that's where they show their ads. They wouldn't give everyone the options of POP3 and forwarding if they didn't expect to make a web mail interface that's light years better than even a local mail app. It's safe to expect a huge leap ahead for their webmail app, like the first gmail was when it came out.