Verizon.ne​t Email Speeds Do Not Match FIOS Line Speeds

Question

In the past months since about September 2012, Verizon email servers are not moving data as fast as the line speeds customers are subscribing to.  Such as, Fios 15/5 mbps line speed package, using a browser and going to a speed test website, the results are equal to or better than 15/5. 
Except for when Verizon.net customers use the Verizon.net email accounts which come with the internet package. Those speeds have degraded, especially when moving from the old email servers to the new ones (incoming.verizon.net to pop3.verizon.net).  The overall speed with their email, via browser or software (Outlook, Windows Live Mail, Outlook Express, Thunderbird etc.) has dropped to as little as 1.0 mbps when obtaining email, especially those which have some payload such as a 6 MB .pdf, .jpg., .tiff, .zip, .rar and so forth.
What's fowl about this is, Verizon.net support folks have no access to the email network so they are unable to communicate to those running the email servers that customers are unhappy with the service.  Mostly, those who are new to Verizon Fios just continue to use their Gmail or Live accounts which just happen to work satisfactorily, speeds in the area of the above example, 15/5 mbps.
What's really bad about this is, upgrade to the Quantum Fios packages and guess what?  Email speeds don’t move an inch faster.  This means, the email network/servers with Verizon.net are speed regulated outside of the customers line speed connection.  Too bad, customers pay extra for more speed yet, email with Verizon remains at the slow pace. I have much issue with this since in the past, this had never been an issue.  Now that Verizon has Fiber, it is? It would be nice if they published this alongside of the many features that come with a Fios ISP account however, it is nowhere to be seen. 
This is obviously bait and switch service and features.

Answer 1

You don't go into the details as to why the account was suspended ... that background might be helpful since you're asking others for their opinion.  In general it sounds like the account was "deleted" at which point all mail is bounced because the address no longer exists -- but Verizon holds the name in reserve for some period of time to prevent someone from re-registering it in case an error was made and for some level of security, I suppose.
Anyhow ... on your commentary about not using an @verizon.net address as your primary address ... I think you will have this with many providers.  Hotmail, Yahoo, and Gmail all do this if you terminate the account (they do have a suspended account due to inactivity feature which operates differently, but pretty much do the same thing for deletions and such.   I don't use the @verizon.net account as my primary for a different reason however -- my primary address is provider agnostic.   I can move providers (although I'm quite happy with FiOS at the moment) -or- if at some point down the road I have to move out of Verizon territory, my email address will not need to change.  I used this little fact to my advantage when I moved from Comcast to Verizon a few years ago -- no one knew I changed providers because my email address didn't change.   Now .. I don't use one of the free services for email, I own my own domain name (about $10/year from the likes of GoDaddy) and have my domain hosted on the Google Apps tier (but even without that, GoDaddy will do basic forwarding for you of any email address to whatever mail account you're presently using).    Something to think about.