Are there solid benefits to Upgrading

[Longinthetooth]

I have been using Office 2000, particularly Outlook and earleir versions. I
use Outlook extensively, with lots of folders, but wish for a far better
Folder organisor and its limited rules. I am totally dependent on the
Calendar as my reminder, and the contact list; with occasional Tasks type
reminders. I see these as the hub of any office tool, possibly combined with
MS Project. It essentially replaces a " S-M Records System". All the other
Office Tools have little to do with managing an office or life. They are
useful tools, but they are about producing or digesting products, eg, Word,
Excel, PowerPoint, etc.

Does the latest version of Office actually have any 'smarts' that makes
Outlook fundementally better? Easy to use, easier to archive, backup,
recover, easier to rely on if you don't have a backup, repair. Are its
functionality changes anything more than 'bells and whistles'?

If Outlook is very much better, are there any fundemental changes to the
other Office suite. I know the latter is in someways a daft question, as the
idea of an Office suite has been totally demolished, so that you can't
actually buy the products you want as a single bunch, but I'm sure you get
the idea.

 

[DL]

Outlook, pre 2003, uses a ansi format data file, which has a size
limitation. From 2003 a unicode format is used with a default 20gb -
theoretically unlimited size.
Personnally I find OL2007 a vast improvement on OL2003, which in itself was
much better than OL2000

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

Does the latest version of Office actually have any 'smarts' that makes
Outlook fundementally better? Easy to use, easier to archive, backup,
recover, easier to rely on if you don't have a backup, repair. Are its
functionality changes anything more than 'bells and whistles'?

Of course, anything people may answer to this question will be personal
opinion, but I find the two most valuable additional features to be Unicode
PSTs and the AutoCompletion cache.