Yes, but by resizing the left panel width to the minimum as shown on the 2nd screenshot above, you can see that the mail counts are gone...to have it back I need to make the panel width wider as shown in the 1st pic ;-)
That's the all point of this post, by resizing the panel I end up losing the mail counts...and by the way the only way to resize the panel is in "look and feel" settings or am I not seeing another setting somewhere else?