CAUTION-MAJOR BUG Address Book's "Merge Selected Cards" DELETES CONTENT!

I have just realized (after losing much data) that when using the Merge Selected Cards function within the Apple Address Book that it will, without notification, delete content! That's right, if the two cards share different data but have the same field labels, Address Book will merge the two and simply keep the content in the 1st record (deleting the content in the 2nd).
For example... Two records (same contact), one record with a home-email and home-number and one with a work-email and work-number. However since both happen to have default field labels of "email" and "number" when you select "Merge..." you don't end up with two emails/numbers in the merged contact you actually only have the content from the 1st record.
Essentially "Merge Selected Records" = "Delete 2nd Record"
This is a major error. The feature should be removed asap until it is corrected!!

This bug still affects the Address Book v5.0.3 which is updated with the Mac OS X 10.6.5 update which has just been released.
Apple have been notified of this bug as far back as November 2009.
There are at least 3 separate RADAR bug reports about this issue.
There have been 3 Mac OS Snow Leopard updates since the bug was reported to them. The bug has not been fixed in any of these updates.
The bug does not affect Address Book v5.0
It does affect Address Book v5.0.1
It does affect Address Book v5.0.2
It does affect Address Book v5.0.3
Apple were notified in November 2009 after Address Book v5.0.1 was released that this problem existed. We also told Apple customer support. We told the Apple Store Regent Street Geniuses. We emailed Apple Developer Bug Reporting and were initial told they were aware of it, then we received no more replies.
The original thread in the forums detailing this issue is now archived even though the bug remains. So we cannot reply and update that thread.
We suggest you try and make as many people at Apple aware of this issue as we think it is very poor that they are aware of a serious data loss bug for 12 months and havent rectified it in many software and Address Book app updates.
Edward
Equinox News Pictures Ltd.
+448700780000

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