Hi Folks,
I have come to the concusion that Microsoft doesn't care about these annoying issues.
On the bright side, conact maintenance performed within the browser version often achieves success without having to go through contortions.
In the browser, to remove a "suggested" contact, if you add that contact, you are then able to delete it.
Since I have switched to the browser for contact maintenance, I have virtually removed my dependency on asprin and tums to use Outlook for email.
Oh, and this is especially true of other email providers that you have ported into Outlook. Fix the address book there and it "usually" syncs correctly.