In a professional context I see little reason to be enquiring after other peoples health. I did used to get quite annoyed with my American colleagues who would preface every telephone call with "how are you?", to which you were not expected to reply in the negative - got a bit of a cold, my corns are playing up something rotten and my little finger is gangrenous would get the same response, good, as saying fine. Totally formulaic and silly - but much of a conversation is like that, we have the weather to break the ice.
The liberating opportunity of email is to pare away all the extraneous stuff and get straight to the point. In a professional context one should be terse and efficient. Emails proliferate to the point of absurdity, most are a monstrous distraction from the work in hand (indeed I took the view that people who generated large quantities should be the first on the list for the chop) but those that are essential should be considered and efficient. As an engineer Will, you should pare away all inessentials to achieve the optimum result with the greatest economy of effort. So ignore this flim flam and keep to the point.
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