I sent the DejaDesktop folks an email a few days ago with some comments, and today I got a response from Wayland Bruns, CEO/CTO, CompanionLink Software, Inc.

Some things of note:

1. Contact filters and/or search capability is "on the current development schedule for the next 14 days."
2. They have had "more than one [request] for vCard/vCal [support] and will be implementing that soon."
3. "Calendar Alarm support is on the schedule for the next 5-7 days. We dropped it at the last minute because the hardware clock has some oddness that caused them to be wierd. We'll implement a software clock if needed, but [if we do,] alarms wont ring unless DejaPIM is running. That would not be good. Look for Alarms to ring by Friday."

So working Alarms are on the way! I actually wouldn't mind if DejaPIM had to be running (unless that implies that the device must be in a non-standby mode), since I keep it running all the time anyway (the app itself doesn't use much memory).

Rock on, DejaDevelopers.