Chromium includes sync. Basically the biggest parts you'll be missing are a pdf reader and flash. pdf.js has a chromium extension to make it easy to use there (though depending on the document, it won't necessarily feel faster and more minimal), but if you need flash for something, Chrome is one of the better ways to keep it updated these days. You can always run Chromium and open up Chrome for Flash, though.
Oh wow, it has sync? I thought all of the proprietary Google features were kept in Chrome; I'm not sure how sync could've been implemented in an agnostic browser...
Thanks for the further info though, it's been awhile since I've updated my Chromium.