Unfortunately, it does not resolve my problems - or, more accurately, does not result in a configuration that I want. Perhaps I should have mentioned that I don't want to lose the option of reading my mail remotely; there are times when I'm away from my laptop and have temporary access via someone else's machine, and at those times, reading my mail at that remote host is just what I want to do. However, when I am using my laptop, I'd like for the mail from that remote host to be retrieved automatically - a cron job would do that for me if I had a script that would reliably do a retrieve-and-delete of the kind that I already described, without unintended loss.

I believe that jhourcle has nailed it: 'Expect' should give me pretty much everything I need - perhaps with 'mailx' on the far end to do the actual message/locking/etc. handling.

-- 
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. -- HG Wells