I'll check it out on monday, but I really doubt there's a bug there, you probably didn't allow enough time to pass still (90 mins, as epeli said).
Boots have their separate category, it's possible that I didn't assign any merchants to it, I'll check.
I can never guarantee save game compatibility. The quests are there because it's easier for us to implement stuff related to them in the existing areas now than to retrofit it later.