When I log out and log back in, the mailcheck applet resets the mail directory to /var/spool/mail. It does remember that it is a maildir, and the time to check settings, the only thing it forgets is the directory location. This is for gnome2 with gnome-applets-2.0.0-r1. Also, gcc3.1 if it matters. Should I also submit this to gnome bugzilla?
That sounds like a good plan yes. Marking this as "wontfix" since it appears to be a code error in the upstream (gnome) package.