Too Formal--is there really such a thing?

Over the past couple of months, I have been told that I am too formal in my professional email correspondence. These are comments that have come from both customers and business partners. I was taken aback the first couple of times I heard it but now I am more saddened by these comments as it means that the English language is deteriorating.

I used to be a "Kelly Girl" from the time I graduated high school until I graduated college. I was expected to know how to properly type a business letter and other business letters or documents.

I view email as a simpler way to formally type a letter to someone. Consider me old fashioned...but I think that written correspondence should follow a proper format. Email should be no different than sending a type written letter to someone.

I received an email the other day that had a customer's name in the subject and the body of the email just said that this person needed to discuss this account in further depth with me. At first the tone of the email led me to believe there was an issue. (but of course we all know how well tone transfers via email). There was no Hello Sanjana, or even a Hi or anything else leading up to the matter at hand. I suppose this approach saved some time? But it just kinda threw me off guard as it seemed abrupt.

Are we so short on time that we have forgone all manners and proper business protocol? I even hear that kids are using IM/text talk in their school papers. The world is so used to abbreviating everything nowadays that I wonder if we are actually reverting back to the days where people used to communicate by drawing pictures. Maybe we will evolve so much that we actually stop speaking. That would be interesting. It just makes me think about all of the advances we have made in technology and life and somehow we seem to be going backwards.

I have a set of standards for myself and I refuse to stop writing in the format that was taught to me, much to the dismay of those who would prefer I be more lacks in my communication with them. I think my 11th grade English teach must be cringing at the way people write today. Perhaps it's because I have several close friends who are writers, that I feel so passionately about the written word. Nonetheless...

I really don't believe that you can be too formal in your professional writing.