In fact, Windows did it for me (more or less).
In MS Word, I used Insert>Symbol. The Greek characters are in the Symbol font. Then I copied them (copy, paste) into e-mail (html-format, of course) and sent it to myself. And they arrived unharmed, without Outlook Express even bothering to ask me about sending it in Unicode (as it does when the message contains an Euro-sign). In fact, it isn't translated to Unicode at all. This is the html-source of the message:
<BODY bgColor=3D#ffffff><DIV>
<P><FONT face=3DSymbol>l</FONT> is a Greek=20
lambda</P></DIV></BODY></HTML>
I really don't know what the 3D means, but Outlook Express manages to understand it.
Of course, the message is only readable in the intended form by people with the Windows character set installed. It's not Unicode at all. It's just the Greek lambda from a special character set, like the symbols from Wingdings. But with 90% of all people using Windows, it seems an acceptable work-around, depending of course on to whom you want to send the message.
I didn't try the WordPerfect Greek Century, Courier and Helvetica fonts, but I'm sure they would work as long as the receivers had them installed. But that won't be many people!
All of this in Windows 95/OE5.5. It's sure to work in Windows XP also. I'm afraid you need some special editor to work in real Unicode. Never had to do it, so I can't answer your real question, I'm afraid.
Hope this helps nonetheless.
Kees