You should know the "!" prefix has it call upon the built-in alias opposed to any custom alias. So just to make sure they don't have any custom msg alias, i would prefix it with a ! to call the built-in and a . to silence it. so you don't get the double message effect on your end. That is my reasoning for the "!". as for the switches for echo, anytime i was applying a switch, such as "-<switch>N" i didn't notice it was working unless i had the -<switch>N at the end of the list of switches. So i apologize for my mistake. .
And for the coding style, i know we each have our own method, but then to go back, he shouldn't have said i had goofy looking code. :\