>
I cringe every time I come across this as well. >

What >

Whether you think you can, or you think you cant.  You're right. >

if by definition, being "professional" means focusing only on the job at hand without interjecting personal beliefs or feelings into the matter ... then yes i agree that this could be considered "unprofessional".
but it's a very minor issue.
some people do have inanely long signatures on their emails. quotes here and there, inspirational, this or that.
then on the other side of the fence, there is me who only signs my emails with my initials. unless it's a new contact who i've never met or spoken with before --- then I give "full name / engineering". i don't say that i'm the manager or director of engineering, i don't say anything other than "engineering" because, honestly, that's all that really matters.

The only thing worse is a person with the Outlook “email background” design.

i'm not really sure what this is. also i will disagree that long signatures make people seem "unintelligent". i don't see the correlation between intelligence and having inspirational quotes in an email.