Steven Zahm@ concoa
re: The page Connections generates does not appear to have any formatting.
Actually, it does, it is just that it is not inline. The card.php file actually has very little inline styling left as most has been moved over the course of updates. The styling left out of the card-single.php is on purpose on is to allow the template to inherit most of its styling from the theme.
re: I really love the potential of Connections, but is there any way for the program to use the registered wordpress or buddypress members and keep them synched?
No, Connections is not intended to be a member directory even though a lot of users successfully us it that way. This separation was designed this way on purpose. Using the Link extension it is possible to let your WP users maintain an entry that is linked to them, but there is now way to automatically pull in WP/BuddyPress users.
re: Do I have to input members in Connections separately from registered users?
Yes, other users generally only use the WP/BuddyPress profile for logging into the site, nothing more.
Hope that fully answers your questions.