[Users] Gmail still driving me crazy

[John Jason Jordan]

Claws Mail 3.11.1 from the repositories on Xubuntu 14.04, up to date.

I have had a Gmail account for many years, and I have been using Claws
Mail on Linux since Ubuntu Breezy Badger was the latest and greatest
release (can it really have been that long?). I have always used POP3
with my Gmail account and lately it has become a major pain. Here is a
section of the log from a recent attempt to connect:

* Account 'Gmail': Connecting to POP3 server: pop.gmail.com:995...
[17:26:42] IMAP4> 634 NOOP 
[17:26:42] IMAP4< 634 OK Success 
[17:27:42] IMAP4> 635 NOOP 
[17:27:42] IMAP4< 635 OK Success 
** Session timed out. You may be able to recover by increasing the
  timeout value in Preferences/Other/Miscellaneous. [17:28:42] IMAP4>
  636 NOOP [17:28:42] IMAP4< 636 OK Success 
[17:29:42] IMAP4> 637 NOOP 
[17:29:42] IMAP4< 637 OK Success 
[17:30:42] IMAP4> 638 NOOP 
[17:30:42] IMAP4< 638 OK Success 
[17:31:42] IMAP4> 639 NOOP 
[17:31:42] IMAP4< 639 OK Success 
[17:32:42] IMAP4> 640 NOOP 
[17:32:42] IMAP4< 640 OK Success 
[17:33:42] IMAP4> 641 NOOP 
[17:33:42] IMAP4< 641 OK Success 
[17:34:42] IMAP4> 642 NOOP 
[17:34:42] IMAP4< 642 OK Success 
[17:35:42] IMAP4> 643 NOOP 
[17:35:42] IMAP4< 643 OK Success 
[17:36:42] IMAP4> 644 NOOP 
[17:36:42] IMAP4< 644 OK Success 
[17:37:42] IMAP4> 645 NOOP 
[17:37:42] IMAP4< 645 OK Success 
[17:38:42] IMAP4> 646 NOOP 
[17:38:42] IMAP4< 646 OK Success 

I have the timeout set to 2 minutes, which is when the Retrieving New
Messages window disappears, yet strangely, while watching the log
window new attempts continue (see above, starting at 17:26:42, timeout
at 17:28:42 (window disappears), and new attempts until 17:38:42). I
know little about how e-mail works, so I have questions:

Why does the log show continuing attempts after the timeout is reached?

What does NOOP mean? 

Why does it say OK Success when clearly it has not been successful? (At
the time of the above attempt logging into the account with Firefox
showed four messages in the Inbox.)

Why does the above log say IMAP4 when the account is set up with POP3?

I have been using this Gmail account for many years so it is used for a
lot of places (PayPal, my health insurance, etc.) - so changing to
another e-mail service would be a pain, but maybe it's time to kiss
Gmail goodbye. Should I bite the bullet? Any suggestions for
alternatives? Or another idea - can I set up an e-mail account
someplace that is easier to connect to and then have Google just
forward all mail?

All observations and suggestions welcome!