I just spotted this thread. I've posted separately about Hotmail dumping genuine mail (not spam). The two folks in our team who were using Hotmail have now given up and moved elsewhere.
Gmail seems not to have these problems. I use a Gmail address for an application where spammers are sure to get hold of it, and it's been flawless. All the spam goes into spam (and it makes it very obvious there's spam in there), and it's fast and reliable.
Time to say farewell to Hotmail, I suggest.