as far as not synching. can you all try to add these nodes and tell me if you were able to connect?
addnode=54.201.183.106:9432
addnode=148.251.70.194:9432
addnode=76.23.205.36:9432
addnode=115.28.129.207:9432
addnode=173.74.26.226:9432
addnode=95.85.48.77:9432
addnode=188.165.194.96:9432
post back here if you need help adding them to the config file
another thing we probably should do is bundle a working peers.dat file with the client (or atleast a config file with a whole bunch of addnodes). That would help a lot of newbies get up and running a lot faster.