Help with Syncing 214 pls.

I'm tearing my hair out here trying to sync my 214 ( bought from here last year ) with my Dell 6400 Vista Business laptop.
I've got Outlook 2007 on the laptop and I've set up the partnership via USB / WMDC and I've selected contacts, appointments and emails to sync.
Syncing starts and runs for ages but nothing is transferred, eventually sync stops.

Any suggestions welcome please.

Now for RANT:
On a slight tangent here, I find it incredibly annoying that so many Micrsoft / Windows OSs and applications refuse to integrate with oneanother !!
The whole point of computer technology is to make our life/work/tasks easier and yet technology always creates headaches.
Why for example isn't there a MS Application which converts all the different Windows calender entries into any of the others , same thing applies to all sorts of Microsoft files from Media to Document. Even if we were forced to buy such software it's existence would be welcome, instead this built in incompatiblity continually rears it's head.
There should be regulations in place that no company should be allowed to introduce new software without simultaneously providing a product that allows full integration with all previous versions, this would ensure that software was only introduced and sold because it was a genuine improvement in it's own right on previous versions rather than just another money spinner for a global mega corporation.
Also software and hardware suppliers should be obliged by regulatory bodies to design products that are truely "plug and play" ( what a joke that so often is !! )ie clear and unambiguous on screen instructions that make all the settings & adjustments automatically and reversibly, and in PLAIN ENGLISH ! - the stereotypical litmus test of " your granny should be able to do it " should be taken and applied literally.