Outlook 2010 vs WLM

I have a new computer. The new machine is running Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8. My old machine is running Windows XP, Internet Explorer 8 and Outlook Express. The old machine works the way I want it to, and when I want it to most of the time. The new machine came with a trial version of Outlook 2010. I did the "easy transfer cable" download from the old computer to the new one. Went to Outlook 2010, and discovered that it had stripped out all of the 20 folders I had 3,000 contacts sorted into, and dumped all of these contacts into one huge address book. I then tried Thunderbird, and it did the same thing. On to Windows live mail. Once again a huge address book without folders. I spent a week sorting and deleting contacts, and learned that even though I sorted the contacts into catagories, the contact had to remain on the main address book. Today I downloaded the emails and 50 some odd folders into Windows Live Mail. I finally located the old emails in a file, and tried to incorperate the old folders into the new. No such luck. I was told that I would have to manually move and sort the new emails in the current inbox into the old inbox and various old folders. I finally called Microsoft, and was told that Outlook 2010 would work with Contact folders, and folders in my stored emails. Can someone please tell me if this is true? I do not want to spend over $100 dollars to buy Outlook 2010, and then learn it works the same way Windows Live Mail does.