contacts are on the google servers. they will re-sync once he signs in. paid app he can dl for free as long as he signs in under the account he used to purchase them. Photos were likely on the sd card. it only takes a couple touches to reset the phone/erase the sd card. so i could see a couple accidental presses wiping everything

 

Welcome to the forums!
photos are stored on SD card and will not be deleted, standard Android also synchronizes contact with Gmail and it can be recovered after factory reset (but this is just voluntary in Sony Ericsoon phone and many people don't set it up). If you husband has synchronized the contacts with Gmail, just set the Gmail account and synchronize to get the contacts. If he has made a backup (there's backup utility on SEX phones, which backups contacts, settings and also applications installed), just start it and restore the backup. If you don't have the backup or contact synchronized withs Gmail, I'm sorry, but he has to start from scratch.

 

It is possible that he may have used the "back-up and restore" app, in which case there will be a file that he can restore using that stock program - especially if he purchased the phone prior to the first 2.1 update.
Easiest way the check is to open the app and see if there are any files available to 'restore'

 

Actually sounds like he did, and it's simple to do.

 

X2 He may be able to gain back some stuff, but if not properly backed up prior, he may be looking at starting over from scratch.