Gmail is already great, but those Firefox plugins or Chrome extensions makes it even more great.
Add your suggestion Subscribe to this listMakes it possible to schedule emails. And (very useful for sales) let you remind you if you don’t hear back
Turn your inbox in a massive 'To do'-tool. It'll turn your messages into tasks, tracking and prioritizing, even turning groups of tasks into projects.
GMass turns your regular Gmail account into a full email automation app with open / click rate tracking & mail merge.
Yanado is a Task and Project management tool in the form of a Gmail Skin/Overlay.
Streak turns Gmail into a lightweight CRM. Send templated emails, track responses, and more. The "send it later" function on the emails is great if you happen to be working on emails to prospects in the middle of the night. Not that you would be doing that.
FullContact: Contact Management Software & API, keeps all your contacts in one place and automatically up-to-date with the FullContact Address Book.
I've started using this and have been immediately impressed and grateful for the core GMAIL UI improvements and functionality it offers. I can now acccess my contact within GMAIL without navigating out and away. There's more but I'm just getting started.
Sortd Smart Skin for Gmail: Transform your email interface into organized lists and discover a whole new way of working with email.