I had a similar issue. The message was “Error – An error occurred. Try again later.” In reading another thread, the suggestion was made to disable all plugins and try it. That worked for me. It continues to work now that all the plugins have been reactivated.
Changing the labels and the list layout is possible but rather tedious. It helps to use an editor with search and replace so that the labels and corresponding field names are replaced everywhere. I wanted pretty much the same as you so I worked it over and named my version LBB (Little Black Book). It is available at http://geraldsfuller.com/little-black-book-wordpress-plugin/.
