Maybe I'm just a fuddy-duddy

You know, so long as we are forced to use Outlook because it's a company-wide standard and somehow more professional than using "random" open source programs such as Thunderbird or Mozilla Mail, there should be some company-wide standard on how it is unprofessional to send out business email with textured backgrounds and with one's signature in curly, difficult-to-read fonts.

That is, stupid stuff like this vacation notice shouldn't happen. Now I'm not sure how you make it not happen without turning the corporate culture into something that obsessively enforces pointless rules, but there should be a way to express social disapproval of extraneous cutesyness.