All Types of People should share one table. All types of Companies should share one table.

I want all PEOPLE in the same place.

It's very inefficient for Leads to be separate from Contacts. They should all be contacts, with "Lead", "Friend", "Info Source", "Media Contact", and other custom person-types in a "Type" field.

This is evidenced by the fact that you can convert a Lead to a Contact, but not back to a lead. You should not have to "convert" anything, just change the contact Type from "Lead" to whatever.

You should still be able to view and perform various special Lead-Only functions and features on "Leads" only.

People can be more than one type at the same time. That should be allowed. I don't want to maintain separate database tables for the same person.

It is also inefficient to have "Accounts" separate from "Vendors". Yes, you should be able to view them separately, and perform special functions and features that only apply to "Accounts", or only apply to "Vendors". But they are both COMPANIES, and should share entry forms and database table, with a Type field set to "Vendor", "Account", "Media Outlet", or other custom company-types.

It's also possible for a Vendor to also be an Account at the same time. I don't want to maintain separate database entries for the same company.