ahhhh don't get me started on that 'fingering in public' issue again.
If I am tempted to finger something it is certainly not something I would do in public, anyway.

referring to OP first post:
Claws runs rings around the Modest email,
but that is mostly already done.
The contacts/phonebook portion was born brain-dead,
and deserves a proper, well-publicized and final funeral.

NokTok went off on a bit of a tangent but said it rightly,
we the enthusiasts can only hope whatever device we
hang our sails on will have the basics right so the market
will support the device economically.
Having adequate firmware with an open source OS is an 'almost'
but the teeming masses that plunge over the market cliff every day
are what powers the firm that makes these marvels.
Without the minimal basics they will not buy and if they do not buy
our platforms end up becoming noteworthy historical studies
rather than the dynamic forces of innovation we like to see.

The basics are
* visual design (appearance),
* basic utility (phone/communications functions),
* cost (economics).
which the market perceives to be a phone first... ...with other stuff being mere fads.
Many of us look at it another way around, with appearance
being not as important as being able to coax the device into
doing something utterly useful rather than being just a piece of fashion bling.

Having said all that, I second the motion -
a ui-friendly contacts db or something would be nice
(that could integrate with claws, I suppose - Modest is an abortion).
I think first of KDE: Kmail and Kontacts (with telephony thrown in)
but KDE would be such an absolute PIG it would kill the machine even if it could run on an ARM.

The first rule is establish what it would take,
so I guess I need to read up on how that is done (not my forte, to be certain).
We can already see that
Maemo will still be 'the only game in town' for another year anyway
at the very least so perhaps there is time to tune this.
A vcard integration I suppose, judging from the claws manual.