Mail Repeatedly Crashes in 10.5.1 -- One Solution

Question

OK, there's several different threads covering Mail repeatedly crashing in Leopard, some covering 10.5 and some 10.5.1. In addition, some of the solutions have apparently worked for some users, most notably removing GrowlMail for those who had it, but my Mail kept crashing even after trying a whole slew of possible solutions. I know some users had similar problems to mine, so here's my problem and solution:
Problem:
Upon startup, Mail begins to download new messages and seems to download two or so before it freezes then crashes completely (quits).
Tried lots of things, but none worked. Ultimately tried to copy my entire ~/Library/Mail folder to a backup drive before trying to copy older backup of Tiger Mail folders to Mac running 10.5.1 in last-ditch effort. Upon starting the copy process, however, the process immediately failed, noting that my Mac could not read or write the file "LSMMap2". Why? Must be corrupt. So I Googled LSMMap2 and found that it's a file for managing your junk mail filters in Mail.
Solution:
I deleted LSMMap2 (no need to back it up since I couldn't copy it anyway) and then used some excellent instructions from another poster, David Gimeno Gost -- thanks David! -- to find and remove all my junk mail-related files, basically any junk.mbox file in any Mail folder or mailbox account folder. I trashed them all. Here's a link to David's instructions:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1165162&tstart=1
The result? Mail launched and downloaded 817 messages! And it hasn't crashed for 45 minutes!
Side Effects: All my junk mail filters are wiped out, but that's a small price to pay for getting Mail back. I can rebuild the filters more easily than using Webmail from multiple e-mail accounts -- or ditching Mail for something else entirely. Anyway, thought I'd share since losing Mail functionality totally bites.

Answer 1

Hold down the Shift Key while clicking on the Mail icon to launch Mail
Hmm, nothing happens here. Clicking in the dock or double click on the app itself?
Do i get feedback only when there is a problem and not it everything is okey? Is that similar to the "database rebuild" when holding down option while launching Entourage?
Thanks for further infos
Patrik