Android: imported contacts are not visible

I'm using Adnroid dev SimpleSyncAdapter example to import cloud-based contacts into my application. The import runs fine, when I access contracts2.db in the emulator all contacts are there and raw_contacts, data and contacts tables seem to be properly populated. Here's a puzzler:

1. Newly imported contacts are not visible in the emulator. In fact when I click on "Contacts" it gives me message that You don't have any contacts to display
2. When I run the same import on my N1 phone I can only see imported info on pre-existing, matching contacts. If the contact is truly brand new it's not appearing in the contacts list.
3. If I manually add a contact and then run import then the information from my import gets merged into the manual contact by the same name (merged OK)
4. If I run import and then add contact manually this contact will not contain cloud-based info (no merge)

That makes me think that somehow sync between contacts and raw contacts is broken or mangled yet in contacts table I see _id, name_raw_contact_id and lookup columns clearly populated

Note: I found very similar question here but unfortunately it has no answer

If you want to find added contacts - open Contacts, press Menu button -> display options and enable your contacts type.