The Contact Transfer Workaround
After several days of frustration and trying to get my contacts from the Instinct to the Palm Pre I've found a solution.
If you read about my disappointment with the Pre's bluetooth capabilities, or lack thereof, then you'll know I've been frustrated with my contacts being on my Instinct and not my Pre.
Yesterday I did some looking around, (again) but couldn't find any cut and dry solutions. I figured tho, with both devices being smart phones I ought to be able to export from one and transfer to the other. Some how.
Here's what ended up working.
1.) I synced my Instinct up with Sprint's Mobile Sync tool, which pulled all the contacts from my phone into a list online.
2.) I exported that list as a .csv (comma separated value) file.
3.) Then I imported that file to my gmail contacts folder.
4.) Because the Pre is synced to my gmail account and automatically pulls in my contacts I now have all my old contacts on my new phone!
Tickled as I am, I wish I'd been able to find this information on my first or second day of Pre ownership!