3.8 - Strange problems with loot, merchants etc.

[Drawde]

Killspree's loot problems sound more or less the same as mine.
Have there been any changes to the loot-related code since 3.6?
There appear to be no changes to the DB structure.

As for merchants, with me some (about 25%) work, some don't (i.e their item lists are empty) - which ones work seems to be unrelated to the items in their list. I've plenty of items in my DB, including most standard/newbie items as well as high-level ones, so it can't be that the items aren't there.