That was quite the story, Bert. Just when I thought the journey through the interwebs couldn't be more enjoyable. Now I'm driving the transport ha. Tom, just in case you missed it, Exchange is like having your own GMail or Hotmail. Even if the Internet were to go down, your emails will all be accessible and you can still email within your network. You can use it internally and externally. You control everything. Shared mailboxes, contact lists, group emails, distribution groups, transport rules (attaching legal disclaimers), etc. Something you can't do with most other services. E.g. a staff account shared by everyone.
Another nice thing is single sign on. No separate logins for email and Windows. Log into windows and your Outlook email will be good to go.