trailing .* (was .procmail as a gateway)

Era advised Chuck,

|        A trailing .* or (something)? is always completely redundant.

Not always: usually, yes, but not to the right of an extractor.

|        A leading ^.* doesn't serve any useful purpose, either.

It didn't for Chuck, but if the next character after ^.* is ^ or $ to match
a newline, ^.* prevents matching the next ^ or $ to the opening putative
newline and requires matching it to a real newline in the search area.