Mac Mail vs Entourage, Backup, etc

Having used Entourage for many years, I got used to using most of its features. Recently, for complicated reasons, I switched over to Mac Mail. I had tried it several years ago but found it not quite as useful as Entourage. Now, with .mac iDisk and Backup, I see the real advantage of the automatic backups (at least I think it's backing up my email when it backs up Personal Settings -- I'm busy completing a dissertation and haven't had time to check). With respect to email, one primary thing I don't like about Mac Mail is apparently no spelling suggestions when there is a spelling error -- I have to paste the problem word into another program to get suggestions. Another problem is that in Entourage, when I want to add an addendum to a message I have sent to a bunch of people, I just select my old message, hit "reply all" and it automatically sends to the same people, and not to me. When I do the same thing in Entourage it automatically sends to me (how often does anyone want to do that?????) and puts the other recipients into the "cc" function. Irritating!!!

But my greatest problem is that I really got used to using the Notes function of Entourage (it's where I store all my passwords, for one thing and BTW, this is several years old but I HATED Stickybrain -- what a malfunctioning hassle). While I'm using iCal for some of the old Entourage functions, I don't find anything equivalent to notes in my basic Mac software. As a consequence, I'm having to just leave Entourage always open on my desktop anyway, because I so frequently use the notes function. Am I missing something or is there really no Mac function equivalent to Entourage Notes?

I am seriously considering going back to Entourage at this point and just backing up my email manually. Any suggestions appreciated.