Re: point #2: An electronic lab notebook system (that researchers will actually use) is, literally, the holy grail of laboratory informatics. This particular grail sits at the end of a road littered with the corpses of dozens of failed attempts; all either too complex, too simple, too hard to use, not generic enough, too generic, etc. etc. etc.
Someday, somebody'll figure out how to do it, and when they do, it'll be amazing... but I'm not placing any bets on when it might happen.
Yup. We feel the same way. Electronic Lab Notebooks are a daunting undertaking and we decided to tackle a problem that we knew we could make a dent in the first pass.
Definitely the way to go, especially given that Quartzy (or something like it) is essentially a necessary precondition for a useful electronic laboratory notebook system, so if you did decide to someday go there, you'd have some of the plumbing done already.
Someday, somebody'll figure out how to do it, and when they do, it'll be amazing... but I'm not placing any bets on when it might happen.