I think I figured out why it is taking longer. I might need to sync more often, I been syncing about once a week and I download a good bit of stuff in that amount of time and update a lot of apps.
Upgrading to iTunes 8.1and it changed the default bit rip rating of 128 to default of 256. Wondering why all the new songs were filling room fast but just changed the default setting back.
I'm on a PC & have a 3G phone w/ version 2.2.1 loaded. The sync gets stuck in an endless loop w/ the contacts & doesn't progress from there. If I un-check the calendars, it does sync but takes almost 30 minutes. I don't have any music on it & only about 500 contacts so it shouldn't take so long to sync. Sometimes the apps don't sync either.
Finally - success! After multiple other tricks, I found the troubleshooting section at support.apple.com to resolve my issue. I reset the sync history in iTunes and this took care of the problem. Duh! I'm definitely no techie! And I appreciate everyone's help. Thx.