The log book is indeed buggy when it comes to the Raanaar quests - I'm hoping for a patch.
Merchant and a stupid log book => the quest turns up again, if you speak to him afterwards IIRC? I warned him and gave him the amulet - then didn't speak to him. But don't worry, you got the XP pts in this case.
The Raanaar quests (the ones not turning up) are indeed a XP problem. You get the reward always, but not the XP. Dunno why - the German version did not have this problem (I can only confirm this up to GV version 1.3)
Kiya
