If you want to edit the address, simply click in the "Type" column (e.g. E-mail), and TAB into the actual email address field.
You can then edit / copy etc the email address without launching Outlook.

Also: Outlook only launches when you "click" on the email address because it is a hyperlink. If it didn't launch Outlook you would still want it to launch an email client. So now you know how to edit the email address without launching Outlook, do you still want a different default email program?

I too am not a fan of removing the hyperlink. It is a necessary feature to have it open on a click. You can get into it if you learn the best way as Martin described below

We change the type (in Config) to be a text field instead of a hyperlink. Problem solved! Then, if it needs to be a hyperlink (for emailing thru RE, which we don't do here, but did at my last org), you change it in Config, send your message, and change it back. When I first changed the field type to text, every user I talked to thanked me...they had all been accidentally opening new email messages instead of selecting the address.

There is no reason to go into config to change them all to text just so you can edit one address then change it back. You only need to click first on type then tab into the email address instead of clicking into it as Martin said.

But absolutely - if you do not use outlook (or sadly do not use the integration and recordkeeping of all of your emails to constituents) then make it not be a hyperlink.

Clarification: if you only need the hyperlinks to send mass-emails (i.e. renewal notices for memberships, e-solicitation, etc) that only happen every so often, and you use RE to send them (not another program), you can change it in Config back to a hyperlink when needed.

We have a separate system that does our mass-emailing, and our staff prefer to have the plain text field in place in RE. And we do not maintain every single email sent to every constituent (that would be a lot of data and not much information, which you would then have to sort thru continually when looking for anything specific), so that's not an issue for us. Should there be something important within an email thread that needs to be recorded/saved, it will become part of an Action entered by the appropriate fundraiser. (We also use a lot of volunteers - board and committees - and they cannot access RE, so we send them contact info, they return call reports, which are sometimes email conversations.)

This is already an existing suggestion.

The big problem is that the email client is fixed to outlook and it does not matter what the default client is on the Windows system is. I would like the ability to turn off the default or open the email using the system default (which could include Google Apps )