I know there is a hr (horizontal rule) in html, but I don\'t believe there is a vr (vertical rule). Am I wrong and if not, why isn\'t there a vertical rule?
For use in HTML email for most desktop clients you have to use tables. In this case, you can use tag, with necessary (but simple) inline styling, like:
Of course that styling with CSS is more flexible, but GMail and similar don't allow using of any CSS styling other than inline...