This whole thing is about configuration in Gnome. Not the apps included with Gnome. Not paying attention?
You replied with:
"Firefox stripped out a lot of options (there's nowhere near as many as in the full suite)"
I asked what configuration options they stripped out. Not what features like a mail client, or html editing, or chat. That an application is available not as an integrated suite, but now as separately downloadable components and apps, is nowhere near the point.
So tell me - what configuration options (you can ignore about:config, since I didn't know it was there in Mozilla; this should make it easier for you) did Firefox strip out?
When you answer that I have some more questions.