The HTML is interpreted exactly the same way, and that’s the primary determinant in the resulting display of images.

That said, your charge that RSS is the “fax machine of the internet” may not be far off, at least from a marketing standpoint.

I’ve transitioned my business, DIYthemes, over to email instead of RSS, simply because the engagement is so much higher.

Oh, and you can exercise finite control over the display of emails, too, so that’s another huge bonus vs. RSS.

I’m a photographer, and I’m looking to harness feeds a bit like Getty does (see this) – no photos of Freida Pinto in mine though, sadly – and I share your loathing of the uncouth caption, gettin’ all up in my pictures.

Windows 7 can apparently do fun things with image feeds too (and despite their falling out of favour, so can digital photo frames), but I don’t quite get how, given the apparent size limits of feed images. So, any fresh insights/pointers would be welcomed.