For everything that Google does well, for everything I say "Google is the coolest" about, I have finally found something that I hate that Google has done.
Contact Sync sucks. I had a feeling that it was going to great problems, but when I finally got to it, it created huge problems.
I did a lot prior to starting the sync up so that I wouldn't run in to too many problems.
1. I made sure that my address book on my computer included everything from my google contacts.
2. I made sure that I had a backup of my address book so that if anything went wrong, I could restore it.
3. I deleted my entire google address book, thinking that if I start from everything on my computer, it would create fewer problems.
4. I uploaded my current address book to google.
At this point, my Google contacts and my address book were identical; same names, same numbers, same addresses, etc.
I then synced my iPhone to Google. You can only sort them with the first name first. I don't like that. Also, it creates 2 address books. One from your computer and one from Google. I don't like that.
Then I plugged my iPhone in and it downloaded my Google contacts into my address book, with the names reversed, so then I had 2 of each contact, on that read first name first and last name last, and one that read last name first, first name last.
Wonderful.
I deleted the duplicate contacts and turned syncing off.