What do you do? Use the on-screen keyboard to send keystrokes through to your mail client? I assume you've at least chosen a mail client that operates by hitting individual keys, not case-sensitive stuff, chording or the like?

If I were using an iPad to read e-mail, I suspect I'd be setting up an IMAP server pronto!

What do you do? Use the on-screen keyboard to send keystrokes through to your mail client?

Yes. Works perfectly well, even when the keystokes are Ctrl-this or M-that – the iSSH extended keyboard is not excessively unpleasant even for those.