I have a question. If you know someone who has bought the .Mac can't you just give that someone $10 and make him add another email account to his? That way you would get an email account for $10.

Is there a downside to this?

Yeah. you could do that. I don't see why not.

Would he/she be able to see your mail if you did it like this?

Well, I would imagine he/she would have to give you your username/password. So if they wanted to they could see your email.

they could give you a stupid password and then you could change it though. But you'd have to trust that person a lot because they could theoretically delete your account (I think)