I'm not a hard core follower of GTD, but I do believe that working from the top of your inbox all day long is a recipe for disaster. However, accessing email is important and necessary. Problem is, with most email clients (I use gmail), you have to pass through the inbox (risking distraction) to do anything else you might need to do with your mail, such as composing or searching. Recently, I've developed a workaround for this, which allows me to a) send and b) search without ever seeing my inbox. It's working pretty well for me so I thought I'd share:
Sending: Using the Quick Compose w/ Gmail and Quicksilver technique, I can now fire up a new Gmail compose window from anywhere (even outside of the browser) by invoking command+shift+m. Now, when I think "Oh, I need to email Karl about our project", I don't go to the inbox, I go to the compose window directly from wherever I am. Priceless.