Shoutbox

Wouldn't it be possible to make it so when the button is clicked, it resets to one.
Also, if there was an actual button that said e-mail:1 like the defult one.

Then you'd have to have special detection of GMail, which would be non-standard. The limitation is because GMail doesn't stick to the POP3 standard.
As for the button, it wasn't possible to do that in MSNM7, which is why the mail counts are now accessed via the Plus! icon.