It sounds as if it wasn't working with the update so he deleted the update and it still doesn't work. And since it's a system app, you can't just uninstall it, then reinstall it. (Trust me, I've tried. I can't find it in my app drawer, but it's there, it's set up and it runs. I just can't create a shortcut on the homescreen, and I'd have to uninstall it, set Nova to create shortcuts and reinstall it to [maybe] fix the problem.)
To the original poster - try a different email app. (I've started using K9, but you have a choice of dozens - and they'll all access the same email accounts as GMail once you set them to.)