RFC-5322 (the current standard for Internet Message Formats) in section 3.4.1 states, "... how address is used and how messages are transported to a particular host is covered in separate documents, such as [RFC5321]."
RFC-5321 states in section 2.3.11: ''The standard mailbox naming convention is defined to be "local-part@domain"; contemporary usage permits a much broader set of applications than simple "user names". Consequently, and due to a long history of problems when intermediate hosts have attempted to optimize transport by modifying them, the local-part MUST be interpreted and assigned semantics only by the host specified in the domain part of the address.'
Furthermore, it states in section 2.4: 'The local-part of a mailbox MUST BE treated as case sensitive. Therefore, SMTP implementations MUST take care to preserve the case of mailbox local-parts. In particular, for some hosts, the user "smith" is different from the user "Smith". However, exploiting the case sensitivity of mailbox local-parts impedes interoperability and is discouraged. Mailbox domains follow normal DNS rules and are hence not case sensitive.'
While you are pedantically correct, to me that reads, "don't try to change the case of the local portion of email addresses and apply no meaning to it." In other words, treat it "as-is" and assume nothing about it.
RFC-5321 states in section 2.3.11: ''The standard mailbox naming convention is defined to be "local-part@domain"; contemporary usage permits a much broader set of applications than simple "user names". Consequently, and due to a long history of problems when intermediate hosts have attempted to optimize transport by modifying them, the local-part MUST be interpreted and assigned semantics only by the host specified in the domain part of the address.'
Furthermore, it states in section 2.4: 'The local-part of a mailbox MUST BE treated as case sensitive. Therefore, SMTP implementations MUST take care to preserve the case of mailbox local-parts. In particular, for some hosts, the user "smith" is different from the user "Smith". However, exploiting the case sensitivity of mailbox local-parts impedes interoperability and is discouraged. Mailbox domains follow normal DNS rules and are hence not case sensitive.'
While you are pedantically correct, to me that reads, "don't try to change the case of the local portion of email addresses and apply no meaning to it." In other words, treat it "as-is" and assume nothing about it.