Again, how is OS X 10.8.1 supporting Exchange mails better?

Question

I have updated to the last Mountain Lion patch (10.8.1) which promised to work better with Exchange.
I cannot verify this, the opposite: I started up Mail this morning, and my Exchange mailbox appeared empty.
There is a notice in the headline saying "0 mails, 2 unread" which is paradox.
And yesterday, the notification center reminded me about a date every five minutes, although I permanently closed the reminder.
Next thing I found out: I cannot add birthdays to contacts anymore on my Mac.
When I try to add the birthday field from the menu, it is grey.
However, on my iPhone it is still possible.
What's up, Apple?
Abusing your customers as beta testers?
This was the main reason why I migrated from Microsoft to Apple!
Now, this game starts over again ...
Dissapointed,
Thomas
Screenshot from Mail:
Screenshot from Contacts:

Answer 1

My mail application completely failed shortly after the upgrade to Mountain Lion. None of the user advice has repaired it from these forums, so I have now resigned myself to using my ipad and iphone to conduct all my business emails. I was hopeful that this first 10.8.1 update from Apple would restore the my mail application. I can frustratingly report that no, it certainly hasn't. No change in fact. I click on the mail app and the beachball of death continues for about 5 minutes then it comes up with a message 'there is a problem with your mailboxes' with the option to quit or quit and rebuild index. If I choose that latter, the beachball resumes it's rotation forever or until I hard reset the machine as all other programs crash at this point. Apple, please help FAST, this is no way to run a business!!!!