pretty much this.

I kinda forget what the whole point of the quest is if I don't do it for awhile, until I get back to the person who gave it to me, and the journal doesn't keep track of that

Going to agree on this complaint, I actually dread going into my journal to activate new markers now because there's so many random "speak to X", "deliver Y to X", "find so-and-so" etc stuff in there, just from picking up the odd thing here and there. You know what would be good for a start? Quests listed by region. It'd be a far sodding easier to meet the Jarl requirement to buy housing if I actually know which hold the quest counts towards, and being able to view how many quests I have in a geographical area of the game would mean I could use fast travel less often.

A Morrowind-style journal would have been more difficult for this game considering the use of the auto-generated content, and would perhaps have looked slightly artificial in places, but it isn't impossible and it's rather disappointing that Beth didn't even attempt it. Not only that, but said excuse doesn't hold up at all for the pre-built questlines - at the bare -minimum- I would have expected proper journal entries for the mainquest, civil war, and faction questlines. Even excusing all that, it would have been a piece of piss to at least include a conversation log that shows up when you highlight the quest.

This kind of thing is exactly why my blood ran cold when Beth started talking about how awesome "streamlining" is.

To be fair, the non-Miscellaneous quests do at least give you a blurb. So far there hasn't been a single one of those that I've forgotten about, although I probably have around 20 different ones by now spread out over various characters.

why can't you mark quest as active and follow the marker on the map? do you need clairvoyance?(even though that spell is buggy to say the least) The journal is meant to be a way to mark and un mark quests on your map not to drive the story. detailed instructions are a waste, mark as active go to waypoint end/

If only clairvoyance didnt send me into a mountainside, floor or wall with depressing regularity
In a dungeon it likes to point at the secret door youre supposed to exit from.
In the world map it sometimes changes its mind and has me reverse my steps, then reverse again..

For someone who likes to roleplay that clairvoyance is his ancestor spirits guiding him on his fate, he sure has nasty ancestor spirits.

Edit, to poster above: Well that kinda ruins the rolepay.
This is supposed to be an RPG, and being led like a dog on a leash by these things can seriously hinder that.
It is detrimental to exploration, surprise and statisfaction.
Morrowind has an excellent journal. Sometimes an hour of 'playing Morrowind' was actually reading my journal and reminiscing about what I had done the past in-game year.

Skyrim's quest log is worse than Daggerfall's.

Daggerfall has the excuse of being old, Skyrim is a modern game.
How much disc space can some text possibly take? How much time to type it, compared to getting things like dragons to work?

The miscellaneous quest descriptions are too vague sometimes. Often you *have* to check its quest marker because the text is so not specific. Sometimes it just says 'find this' or 'talk to this guy' without saying where any of that is.