Contact synchronizing

[dtrush]

Sorry I'm late to the party

Is your gmail account a windows live id now? If so I think that only you can send and receive mail with a gmail account and only POP through Outlook regardless if it is a Live ID though I could be wrong. Through your phone however you should get EAS service for E-Mail, Contacts and Calendar. I have my gmail account combined on the WP7 handset for this. Also, make sure if you're going to use multiple calendars in GMail on a WP7 handset to enable them by following this good tutorial. One of my friends had this issue and the problem is now solved.
Mango Tip: Sync Multiple Google Calendars with Windows Phone

I would second the suggestion by @eric12341 about getting a hotmail account setup. Once you do the .csv export from Google on your contacts they will sync right over into Hotmail and you can just manage them from Hotmail after that. I can't see any possible way of managing your Google contacts on Outlook unfortunately. The Hotmail connector does a fabulous job at keeping your Outlook data synced up with the Hotmail account (with the exception of tasks). Oh well, I mainly use my Office 365 paid accounts for the tasks! They do sync well between WP7 and Hotmail.