University of Washington, in a state well known for its pine trees,
wanted to call the client "pine" and came up with that later. The
original pine wasn't a newsreader; that came later.
Development switched to alpine because UWash clawed back the
software patent, alpine was released under a less restrictive software
patent. UWash isn't in the Alps and they came up with a phrase that
alpine might stand for, but these names truly are not abbreviations.
I don't care for alpine as a newsreader. I use it in a pinch. I have my
newsrcs named in the pine-compatible format so the client can find them,
but typically I use other newsreaders.
I am quite pleased with alpine as a mail client and I am quite grateful
to Eduardo for continuing to develop it and I think it takes quite a lot
of nerve to complain about it with respect to newsreading, given that
the client is simply a gift to the Internet community.
Use the right client for the right job. It's not a drawback but a
feature of having choices.