remove the doc type in
HTML e-mails and you HAVE TO use inline styles and tables unfortunately. Browsers render differently and are much more advanced than E-Mail clients. You also need to test in Hotmail, gmail, yahoo!, netscape mail, Outlook, Mail.app, Entourage. Each one handles it differently. Here is a page with some info on what each webmail client reads and does not read.
Web clients:
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/...css_1.html#web
Windows clients:
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/..._css_1.html#pc
Mac clients:
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/...css_1.html#mac
The easiest thing would be to send out a very simple
HTML mail or even a text one with a link to an online version. Then you only need to build the page.