definition of Sync used by the iPhone

Hello,

I am having a frustrating problem "syncing" my AB contacts. Say I have my iPhone contacts exactly like my AB contacts (because I clicked on "replace contacts on the iPhone"). I then edit or delete something in an existing contact in AB (or delete a record entirely) without having touched the same contact on the iPhone, then sync again, and whatever I edited or removed is back as it was before on AB (and the iPhone of course). It is as if Sync prefers whatever is on the iPhone over the same contact on AB, even is this last one has been modified more recently.

Also, if I edit a contact on the iPhone and then Sync, then usually the sync operation aborts, with an error message that "the iPhone has disconnected" (this one I can fix only by resetting sync history on iSync).

Adding a NEW contact either of the iPhone or AB seems to sync fine.

I hope someone can tell me that I am simply doing something wrong. I truly hate to say this, but I never had these many problems syncing with Palm devices, and I used to think that they were a pain in the neck on a Mac...

Thanks,

MC