@ James
re: Is there a way to customize the form that people will see when they update or enter their information?
There is some. navigate to the Connections : Settings admin page and click the Form tab. There is a section which allow you to choose which fieldsets to display. You can also use drag and drop to change the order of the fieldsets. This does not really allow you to hide specific fields.
I do have a Gravity Form connector in the works, still quite a bit away from being completed. It works great for adding entries, but does not yet work for editing. With this extension one can design a Gravity Form to fit their specific needs while being compatible with both Connections and all of Gravity Forms addons.
I hope I have answered your question!