imap strategy - how to make it like newsgroup

[prad]

my present way of handling imap with claws-mail is to periodically
transfer items from the server to a local folder. i also transfer things
from my sent folder. with threading everything falls nicely into place
and i can look things up efficiently. essentially it reads like a
newsgroup.

is there a better way now that i've switched to gnus?

for instance, some people use dovecot to create a local inbox for
incoming email (i imagine you can spam-filter this too). then i can have
my sent items go into this folder as well instead of to a sent folder
and it'll be just like newsgroup.

or i could have outgoing mail go right to the server inbox to accomplish
the same thing, but then i'd have to transfer everything locally at some
point in time.

another advantage i see with the first idea is that searching would be
faster since my personal machine is much more powerful than my home
server and i can use something like mairix or nnir (just heard of that
one) to do indexing.

i'd appreciate any thoughts on setup of this sort. we're about to move
fully to gnus before the new year and it would be nice to get it right
the first time!

-- 
In friendship,
prad