Probably making myself unpopular again. But this one-liner just adds the **old ✉ envelope** back.

Meanwhile I find the new activity popup more useful than the old /recent page. But I do like UI clutter, and still enjoy the retro look of the envelope. So here it is:

    $("#hlinks .profile-triangle").prepend('<a href="/users/recent" class="envelope-off"></a> '); // &#9993;