I agree with all the advice given so far. However, I noticed one sentence that adds to my comments - < Therefore, I move the message of importance to me (and the FRA) out of the Outlook system, and save as an .htm, .msg or .pdf file in my shared network drive.>  
When asked to produce it for legal purposes and the message exists (even in another format), you need to produce it.  Saying all emails are gone from Outlook after 4 years does not exonerate your company from producing what messages do exist somewhere.

In response to your additional questions - 
<Do you "move or lose" e-mails after 180 days?>  Not at this time.  We keep all emails for the length of their required retention.  This does not mean that all emails are records - many can be deleted immediately after reading.

<Or after the longest Statute of Limitations that can be found?> Our retention is based in part on Limitation of Actions, but also on other fiscal, legal, administrative and historical values.  We apply the approved retention.

<or after your available space is full?>  When our Exchange server starts getting full, we get on folks' cases to delete non-record emails and to apply the retention schedule (following our established deletion approval procedures).

(Are .pdf's in a backed up network drive the answer?> The could be.  So could RTFs.  Whichever you use, make sure you have included the header information in the saved document.

Ginny Jones 
(Virginia A. Jones, CRM, FAI) 
Records Manager 
Information Technology Division 
Newport News Dept. of Public Utilities 
Newport News, VA 
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