The idea behind forking or threading is to offload the queue i'm processing to the mail server asap. what i want is a process that runs in as short a time as possible.

for example, if someone has to kick of the notification process over the weekend, it would really suck to have to come in/log in and check it every few hours to make sure its still going.

..and yes, i'm aware of writing automated monitors and all that, but at the end of the day, nothing beats (at least initially in the first few runs) eyes-on to ensure things are going smoothly.