Email-free = Casual?

According to this article in USA Today, "Casual Friday" is trying to, in fact, be more professional. Email has become the top method of communication for businesses, and many companies are trying to cut back on it a little bit and encourage more face time with clients, and just co-workers in general. Some go so far as deleting their inboxes on Fridays. While I appreciate the more personalized approach that face-to-face meetings offer, I do not feel that email should be shunned so completely. With gas prices up, it is more of an inconvenience to attempt to handle everything face to face. Although Friday is just one day, there are generally about 5 of them in a month, which can still add up over a long period of time.
I feel like email is probably the greatest innovation to hit offices since the computer--at my job, it is something I use as much as possible. Conversations through email are saved and it's so much more efficient than faxing (which, yes, we still do). If we're getting rid of things on Fridays, I'm game for doing away with work all together.