I agree with the first two points, but I think the power email deserves a bit more consideration. I've spent a lot of time thinking about how this is received and I think you have to consider your audience a bit. A wannabe yuppie like Slider or Grebutron (circa 2005/2006) would easily be impressed by a 4:30 AM email, but would a more reasonable audience? Perhaps not.
One audience that would be bad is the HR department when you're applying for a job. For example, if I were to send a job application email at 3:00AM tonight, the recipient would probably just consider me an unemployed bum that has nothing better to do, so he's up at 3:00AM.
If you are gainfully employed, you might make people question your quality of work. For example, if one of the attorneys at my office did that regularly, their clients would probably wonder if the drafted agreement was up to snuff... everyone has witnessed crappy late-night writing. That draft could be perfect, but it could be met with more skepticism if it's sent out at an odd hour.
Finally, the whole concept could completely backfire on you. Instead of your recipient thinking "wow, this guy's really burning the midnight oil for me" he might think, "wow, this guy is slow as hell, otherwise he wouldn't need to be in the office so late," or "wow, this guy procrastinated my work and had to stay late." I would offer this instead.
Even if you do the work late, consider sending the email in the early morning, like 7:00 or 7:30. This way, it's still acceptable business hours and your recipient could appreciate the "early bird attitude." More importantly, if there is no deadline for the email, it will be considered early since it arrived first thing during the day. For example, an email that goes out at 4:30AM Tuesday morning may be considered work that you didn't finish in time on Monday whereas an email that goes out at 7:30 Tuesday morning may be considered the first thing you did Tuesday.
Just remember to always consider your audience. Old folks aren't as wildly impressed at our ability to stay up until the wee small hours of the morning as younger folks are.
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Quite true. I suppose my revised thesis would include this warning. Pulling a power move does not a hot shot make. Depending on teh context and teh person, a move that would display my godly powers would make slider look like a 5 year old playing dress up. I mean, I guess that's not fair, cuz slider already sorta looks like that.
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