Even Apple ****-ing mail does this. If someone puts a link in an HTML mail message, the only way to see where the link is going before you get there is to copy the link and paste it somewhere, or view source.
Making the link show up in hovertext or in a status line would reduce the ability of phishers to fool people by about thirty Raffles Units (the standard unit for measuring the effectiveness of a con job), and it's something that I've just assumed Apple, Microsoft, and everyone else would figure out any day now. But no, this must be one of those things that's obviously not obvious.
