Webmail timeouts and lost mail

Question

I have seen several topics here  with people complaining that Webmail times out when they are composing outgoing mail, and lose it when they hit send. However, none of these existing posts seem to have valid fixes or responses, and they all seem to be locked down to prevent new comments, so here is my two cents:
1. I have absolutely experienced the same thing. I've finally gotten into the habit of composing e-mail in an external editor, because I am sick and tired of wasting time recomposing lost e-mail.
2. The Verizon FAQ states two, contradictory policies, both of which are inaccurate:
http://www22.verizon.com/ResidentialHelp/HighSpeed/Email/Setup+And+Use/QuestionsOne/121965.htm:
Does Webmail time me out?
Webmail does not timeout due to inactivity.
http://www22.verizon.com/ResidentialHelp/HighSpeed/Email/Setup%20And%20Use/QuestionsOne/123344.htm
Does Webmail time out?
Due to security reasons, Webmail Basic does timeout after 20 minutes of inactivity. However, messages that were being composed before your session timed out will be saved in the DRAFTS folder.
The first one is outright wrong. Webmail absolutely, positively DOES time out.
The second one is wrong, at least in some circumstances. I have no doubt that this is their desired policy, but like many other customers, I'm here to tell you that under at least some circumstances, Webmai-l times out in as little as 5 minutes, and in these same circumstances, IT DOES NOT SAVE YOUR COMPOSED E-MAIL TO THE DRAFTS FOLDER. It simplay takes you to the log in screen, and when you log back in, your text is irretrievably gone. Verizon Webmail has not auto-saved anything for me in at least a year.
3. I have a theory as to what is going on here, and I am testing it today. Maybe one or two other folks can try this, too. I will report back whatever I find:
I access Webmail through an old bookmark which is defined as http://netmail.verizon.net/webmail/driver?nimlet=deggetfolder
However, I notice that if I login fresh from www.verizon.net and navigate to Webmail, I GET DIFFERENT SESSION COOKIES THAN I DO FROM THE ABOVE BOOKMARK. For example, I get a cookie called -_WL_AUTHCOOKIE_VZCSESSIONID which is not present when I log in using the old bookmark.. There are a couple of other variations, but this seems the most suspicious.
So, my theory is that those of us who often lose composed e-mail after ridiculously short time outs, are logging in from old bookmarks, and that things changed underneath us at some point during a Verizon Webmail update. I am going to try  usng Webmail today from a fresh login, after first clearing out all my existing Verizon cookies, and see if this results in longer sessions without timing out, and saved messages when it does time out.

Answer 1

Oh, and don't even get me started on SEARCH for text within a message. This has never worked, from Day One.
All I ever get is "We were unable to perform your request. Please try again." SEARCH on header text, like Sender and Subject works fine, but apparently Verizon QA has never tested the other options on large mail inboxes.
I'm pretty forgiving and undersrtanding of minor glitches and shortcomings in software, but Verizon Webmail is one of the most unreliable utilities that I've ever encountered from a large company with a huge customer base.