Woo Hooo. Now we’re talking integration

The infrastructure update did, in fact, fix my email enabled task list.
 
I should have read the kb a little more closely.  The update allows workflows to be kicked off by email created items, but only if the administrator enables it via the stsadm command: 
stsadm -o setproperty -pn declarativeworkflowautostartonemailenabled -pv true