A former mgr used to write pseudo informal “I’m a man of the people, follow my lead – I’ll show you the way to the top” emails to his “troops” and they would always begin with the word “Team” (i.e. Team, today marks a key milestone in our development as a ……”)I found this disproportionately irksome. Anybody else experienced this?

yes I find it really annoying. And you know that if you comment then immediately you are flagged as not a "team player".

the sad fact is that everyone is there to earn their money, try to achieve something and hopefully progress. Unfortunately, since Ricky Gervais got going, the cheesy manager has become something of an embarrasing stereotype. It is kind of OK if done in a toungue in cheek type of way but I am guessing that this is not the case here. Very tiresome and actually an insult the the TEAM's intelligence!