If you haven't noticed yet, Gmail opened up a "labs" page a while back that allows you to turn on experimental features within your gmail interface. It had gotten little attention until the new beer goggles protection feature that was added two weeks ago. Well I hadn't really felt the need to turn on any features until this morning, when Google added the ability to integrate Google Calendar and Google Docs directly into Gmail, as well as any additional Google Gadgets (though others are done through a hack and are not yet entirely meant for integration) you like. At that point I turned on 6 features - Google Calendar, Google Docs, Chat to the right, Labels to the right, drag and drop modules, and pictures in chat. Now all of the sudden Gmail looks like a much more powerful dashboard, and the only thing I really feel missing right now is a to-do list (which I could really take care of by pumping a remember-the-milk module into the left bar via the gadget hack). I've grabbed a screenshot of my Gmail as it stands right now - if you want to turn on these features, sign into gmail and go to the settings link, then over to the labs tab.
