Since I’m complaining about broken stuph else where I figured I should also say that I think 8.5 is a great step for Notes and that I no longer hate Notes (if it makes anyone feel better I hate Outlook too).
Now that you know I’m a picky user, i have a suggestion that I think would probably make some people very happy.
It would be nice if you could access the response for calendar items via a submenu when right clicking on a message in the inbox, or from the top menu toolbar in the inbox view. Or both.
How often have you gotten a notice that you knew you just needed to accept/decline, but had to waste the effort of opening the window accepting it and then closing it.
Maybe its just me, but it seems like it would be a nice feature.
Subject: Looking at it - thanks
Glad to hear we’re off the hate list 
We’re looking at how we can expand the ways folks can react to calendar invites without having to open the window as you suggest (we’d like it too). Your two approaches will go into into the pot as we work on the correct interface approach to doing that.
Thanks agains.
Keith
Subject: I second this request!
Responding to calendar stuff is about the only thing that takes me out of preview, so being able to deal with them there would be a great help.
Subject: You can do this from the Day-At-A-Glance
I’m not suggesting that this completely covers your suggestion, but until we add the functionality that you are looking for, please know that you can right click on calendar entries in the sidebar panel an act on them.
This works for unprocessed meetings (given that you are showing them through preferences) and it is something that I use on a daily basis.
Subject: New notice box in bottom left
Are you talking about the New Notices box that can be displayed in the bottom left in place of the Follow Up box? This a semi-acceptable way of doing that, I didn’t know you could, so thank you.
I didn’t see any way to enable the view inside the Day-At-A-Glance without accepting them.
For the record though, I still vote for the tighter integration with the message list/preview pane.
Thanks.