mail-notification behavior is bimodal

[Allan Gottlieb <gottlieb nyu edu>]

I cannot explain why mail-notification has two distinct behaviors:
sometimes one, sometimes the other.

In both modes, when I move the cursor to the lower right corner
I see notifications (mail and wicd).  The two modes for
mail-notification are.

1 (The mode I want).  Hovering over the mouse shows the first 10 msg
headers and gives the total count.  (Left) clicking the icon runs the
mail reader (fetchmail in my case).

2.  Hovering has no effect.  Clicking shows the last two messages.
Right clicking offers "open" and "remove".  I don't see any effect from
"open" and have not tried "remove".

How can I specify that I wish mode 1 all the time?

thanks,
allan

PS.  Gnome 3.2 on gentoo (~amd64)