Google mail IMAP problems

Factual Questions
1

Over the past few weeks I’ve noticed an annoying problem with my Gmail account. I use Evolution as my mail client to download Gmail messages through IMAP. However, many messages do not get downloaded at all. Specifically, messages from other Gmail users only get passed on to me half the time.

Now, the problem may either lie with Evolution, or with Gmail. First, is anybody else who accesses Gmail through IMAP suffering from a similar problem? Second, is there an obvious setting that should be changed, either in my mail client, or in my Gmail settings, to make this annoying (and embarrassing: people were thinking I was ignoring them until I worked out what was happening) go away?

2

Google mail would cause my reader (outlook 2007) to take forever to send/recieve so I don’t have it set up in outlook. I just use the google mail reader and set it to forward ALL mail to one of my other, older email accounts. It has worked out MUCH more convenient than setting up google in an email reader.

So anything that gets sent to google I am guaranteed to receive.
ETA: What I am saying is - I use gmail online reader ONCE, to set up the forwarding. Then use my preferred reader after that.

I will use gmail at work, occasionally, because I’m at work.
p.s. having said all that - the gmail reader is still pretty good.