I run a small business and make a lot of use of the way the data flow from Mail > (iCal+) Address Book > iWork (Pages/Numbers) is so smooth.

I bought Bento1 in Sep after spending Aug trialling it. I had discovered 1.0v2 was barely beta quality but persevered cos I wanted the Address Book/iCal interactivity and trusted that FM would make this the package it should be.

Now FM has made it clear they intend to return nothing for Bento1 loyalty, I'd like to take a several lines to detail just how shoddy a product Bento is in the hope that:
a) More Bento sufferers detail "Bento Balls Ups" in 1-star reviews, so that
b) NO-ONE else gets lured into buying this fiasco, and
b) Someone involved in iWork software realises the potential for building a true OS X database app into a future "iWorkPlus" suite ( a ClarisWorks 2010 if you will!)

FIRST the Major Advantages
Bento
+ links interactively with Address Book and iCal
+ allows expansion of Address Book and iCal by adding new fields

SECOND, just one example of how truly dysfunctional Bento is (these people make M$ software look seamless!). This example follows an attempt to use Address Book and iCal data to set up an invoice:

X AddressBook/iCal data can only be used as Related Records in another "Library" (=DataTable in Database parlance) with VERY limited interrogation capabilities. Imagine you wanted to have a Library for Invoices. You'd want to link to an Address Book Group called "Clients", perhaps? You might expect to be able to put the client's Name (first + last) in a field ,right (dynamically, so when you change client details the invoice changes)? Silly you! The best fudge Bento will allow is a spreadsheet-style table to be inserted, a minimum of three rows deep, with fixed font-size around 9pts. Rubbish.

X Aahh, but surely you can create a Calculated Field in your Invoices relating to fields in your Address Book/other Library? Very True - as long as you can find a use for the Sum/Count/Avg/Min or Max of your client's surname! Rubbish.

X But hey, you've read that Bento can export data, right? Surely, you can pull all this useful stuff together in another package like iWorks' Pages or Numbers? Foolish Child! - Bento will export each and every field in the single Collection (= a simple SELECTion from a Library) you want to export, but nothing from the other Libraries you have related records for. Oh and it's only in .csv format. So your Invoices.csv contains all those fields you don't particularly want to see for this task, but not the Client's name 'cos that belongs to Address Book. Oh, isn't this fun?!

X You'd like to put your logo on the invoice, right? Forget it, not possible - unless, of course you want to enter it in an image field separately on every invoice. Redundancy or what?!

X There IS thankfully, a solution to this: Go to Print, Save As PDF, Buy some app which allows you to alter pdf's and you're nearly there! Seamless, huh?

THIRD, realise that the above is just a part of the myriad ways that Bento is
rubbish. Buy it and you'll waste hours looking for solutions because you can't believe they haven't thought of That Obvious Thing, only to discover they haven't!

LAST, a promise: if some people find this essay helpful, I will trial Bento2 to confirm it's still rubbish (then use Time Machine to return to the paradise that is Bento1!) and report back