But I thought they could use the new AOL Connect instead of the full client software to go online--or is AOL Connect used for something else?

You give good advice, though; I should probably keep them on the normal AOL clienjt. The thing I was considering, though, is that they live in a retirement community with a Mac club (which I presented at); if everyone using AOL could be moved over to Connect + Mail.app + Address Book, then presentations on Mail.app could be done without 1/4-1/2 of the members dropping out since they use AOL.

I left AOL in the days of the beta of AOL Communicator. Horribly slow thing, but I actually liked how AOL was trying to break up their client software. I see AOL dropped that.. :) (in a shootout of mail vs it, mail would win hands down. almost ANY other mail client would win, it was pretty horrible. It COULD read AOL mail outside of AOL, which was unparalleled except for netscape 6 mail. IMAP makes things much easier, I'm sure).