I simply use outlook to sync contacts and calendars, which will also sync with google (I think?). I use yahoo and I had to go through a 3rd party to sync between the 2, which was too much hassle to deal with. I find myself using mail and calendars on my iPhone almost 100% of the time now anyway so there's really no need to sync. Every once in a while I'll use a .csv to sync yahoo to outlook to cover the changes I've made on the phone.
Intelliscreen really is the only answer to question 2. I'm still waiting for Apple to do something about that. I'm on the thing enough anyway so it's not like an email goes ignored for too long
To save battery, turning down the brightness really helps. I turn it up to watch video sometimes but the auto brightness takes care of everything else. If you don't play with it all the time then the battery lasts for a few days, so maybe Apple should turn the funness down a notch. Maybe then everyone else could keep up!