On the subject of free web-based email with POP3 service, I saw in an article on heise online (http://www.heise.de/newsticker/) that Yahoo was discontinuing free POP3 access as of April 20, 2002, if I remember correctly. Article is only a few days old, so you still might find it on heise online, or you can go to http://mail.yahoo.com/ and presumably get the details straight from the source in English. I think POP3 access would remain available for $29.95/year. MailAndNews (http://mailandnews.com, I don't know if this URL still works) discontinued altogether at the end of last Feb 28 (EST), no chance to stay on even if you're willing to pay.
If you have a tracert, and there is one in WATT-32 package, you can find if mail.myrealbox.com and smtp.myrealbox.com are really the same, or if they're different.
