Using Entourage 2004 for Mail?

It looks good, I especially like the Project Center and would like to use it. However, I'm scared of using Entourage for mail (which makes using it to its potential rather difficult) because it stores everything in a proprietary database instead of in standard mailbox files. Its only export format for mail is another proprietary archive format.

Do you use Entourage 2004 for mail? Have you ever been bitten by its database getting corrupted? Are there best practices for avoiding problems? Before I invest too much time I'd like to hear some opinions.

(At which point I decide to ramble)

Maybe if I could somehow make my POP mailboxes into IMAP mailboxes I could keep the mail stored on the server and I wouldn't have a problem. I'm sure it's possible to set up a script that pulls POP mailboxes into a local IMAP server. That might be a good solution regardless of which client I use.