But there are ramifications to having raw binary data in email
messages beyond the scope of vm. Imagine reading a message with raw
binary data in an xterm with emacs -nw - see your terminal window go
catty-wompus with the right combination of bytes. Or through a telnet
session. Also trying to send non 7-bit ascii in a message through
some mailers might cause issues (possibly less so in this day and
age).