Calling it "web 1.0" seems amusingly critical. That said, taking it back to the question at hand, there doesn't seem to be a technical reason you can't do the images in the time machine thing. Most of my emails in gnus show graphically in a correct way. (Some of the more heavily formatted ones mess up, but usually not terribly so.)

For a better idea of what it can look like, enable LaTeX previewing inline in a buffer. Again, I'm usually in an org-mode buffer. And I confess I probably can't fight off a "web 1.0" argument. I have not gone for more modern UIs for some time. :( I grant it is a preference, but helm and similar UIs are much preferrable to me over what I typically see in the newer apps.