I was just starting to dig in to this too, I actually replaced these lines with the old ones;
Code:
// "DELETE FROM quest_globals WHERE expdate < UNIX_TIMESTAMP() || (name='%s' && npcid=%i && charid=%i && zoneid=%i))" //New one
"DELETE FROM quest_globals WHERE expdate < %i || (name='%s' && npcid=%i && charid=%i && zoneid=%i))" //Old one
I found two instances, it compiles but still does the same, so i guess there's more to it like you say -