keep seeing the mentioning about mail and sending players / self things I think it would be good to put this in server context by having some kind of postman type character that comes between X and X time each server day, with your mail could be a gnome or a tree spirit etc or a different character all together. maybe this would open up the ideas for getting random rewards for doing well through the post like you do with achievments but instead special little surprises like some extra resources and such or a donations voucher to donate to any giant of your choice. I think it would add a new kind of buzz to each day people rushing home to see if the postman have come etc. this way its not instant and abusive as much as nothing physicaly happening and there could be no post on certain days.
with this being said, there could be a post office like you have the office you get your card for the housing and such. where you would go between x and x time to send mail.
If there was some post offices around, there could be a random quest generator mechanic where you could goto the post office and get given a quest to deliver mail to a certain npc. e.g X named Vendor in X named Street. for currants or xp / mood etc. probably more mood for helping the community. this way if people get a little tired of farming or mining all day they have something extra to go site seeing in places they may have not seen or have forgotten about.