Lotus Notes

I found a software program that I hate more than Microsoft Word.  Lotus Notes.  I've used Notes before about 5 years ago and had no problems with it, but what I am using now seems like it is even older than the version I used in 2002 (this is version 6.5, no idea what the other one was).  The interface is slow and cluttered and formatting gets trashed any time I want to move something from an email to a document or vice versa.  And by the way, NO, I don't want to use my email/scheduling client as a crappy webbrowser.  It also refuses to learn my most common email addresses, despite my best efforts working with the address book and various options.  I'm not some newb who can't set up rules or auto-fill options, I just find the program much less easy to use than Outlook, and Outlook wasn't perfect by any means.  Anyone know of any resources for those switching from Outlook to Notes?