>Only the second email exclaiming how nice it is that the LSTOWN list
disregarded or somehow converted (or didn't convert) the characters
was sent from the web interface.

But all three of your email samples were conveyed in quoted-printable. Some
sample header information and demonstration text from each (with colons used
as "vertical ellipses" to indicate where I have snipped):

-- first message --
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; delsp=yes; format=flowed
 :
Date:         Wed, 2 May 2007 22:00:12 -0400
 :
Someone might type an entire email, all ascii and smooth, then copy/=20
paste
4=E2=80=B233=E2=80=B3 from firefox/wikipedia, let's say,
and it will throw the whole message into showing the quoted-printable =20=
 :
-- wondering whether this will wrap with =3D20 at the end of every line

-- second message --
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Type: text/plain
 :
Date:         Wed, 2 May 2007 22:51:26 -0400
 :
It's nice to see that this LSTOWN-L list somehow manages to eliminate the=
 quoted-printable=20
formatting that would have shown up in the list we're using as it is curr=
ently configured.

-- third message --
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; delsp=yes; format=flowed
 :
Date:         Thu, 3 May 2007 13:54:27 -0400
 :
Only the second email exclaiming how nice it is that the LSTOWN list =20
disregarded or somehow converted (or didn't convert) the characters =20
was sent from the web interface.

--- end of samples ---

As you can see, all were transferred in the MIME QP format. There was a
difference in the Content-Type, which is what MIME uses to indicate what you
can expect when the transfer encoding is reversed. That may have a bearing
on how your interface handles it.

If you saw some of the received mail with untranslated QP encoding and some
in translation, then your email interface is making the distinction.

Mine handled all of them; I had to extract these samples from the message
source to demonstrate the way they had really come through.

Hal Keen