Thou shalt have but one Gmail label, and that label's name shalt be "Needs Reply".
I'm glad this works for you, but keeping track of and searching through years of emails -- and chats -- with dozens of disparate people and clients makes labels, or something similar, indispensable to me.
Going overboard and having a label for everything under the sun would, for most of us, decrease their utility. But in at least some use cases, having many labels definitely is not in and of itself a bad thing.
I'm glad this works for you, but keeping track of and searching through years of emails -- and chats -- with dozens of disparate people and clients makes labels, or something similar, indispensable to me.
Going overboard and having a label for everything under the sun would, for most of us, decrease their utility. But in at least some use cases, having many labels definitely is not in and of itself a bad thing.