Whether Salesforce intended it or not, the platform has moved far beyond just Sales. In the multitude of cloud products currently available, almost all of them

Whether Salesforce intended it or not, the platform has moved far beyond just Sales. In the multitude of cloud products currently available, almost all of them use the Contact object as something other than a lead. So I guess from my point of view, a Lead can always be a Contact that is captured/not, but a Contact may not necessarily be a "lead", in the traditional sense of word anyways. Given that Salesforce is the only CRM I know in my fairly young career, I can definitely see many of its shortcomings and do not envy the engineers/product managers that have to address those. I think if someone is starting a company, Salesforce is not the right option, both because it is extremely expensive, and its not exactly plug and play if you're looking for customizations.