Re: Why a PC?
I have my mail server running on a PI 2, and it works great - but why worry about e-mails? Once you have read it, save it or bin it? The Pi is perfect for this.
I also use prayer webmail so I can access my mail away from home. That is a brilliant bit of kit.
http://www-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk/~dpc22/prayer/