Yeah, that plus the quote from the first link I posted:
"Just wanted to post the updated quest reward for turning the Griffon Sword back into Yelinak"
Makes it seem like you couldn't turn the Griffon Sword back in initially. But not sure if this is "hard enough" evidence.
I suspect the triplets got changed sometime around October 2001 to drop 2 items (or 1-2?), and additionally 2 new (better) items were added to each of Zlexak and Cekenar's loot tables (Baton of Flame + Dragonspine Rapier & Wurmscale Fistwraps + Frosted Ice Spike). Sevalak never got the new loot treatment, not sure why other than the fact that it was easier than the other two.
It's also worth noting that the "new loot" was usually better than the stuff that dropped initially. Compare the Baton of Flame to Kreizenn's Flame:
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The Baton of Flame gets upgraded at some point, both in stats and to allow Rogues to use it. When did this occur, and did these two changes happen concurrently? Compare to the "upgraded" stats on the wiki page:
http://wiki.project1999.com/Baton_of_Flame
Edit: Just noticed something strange after posting this. BST is listed as a usable class on the Baton of Flame, but that was posted on October 24th, a little over a month before Shadows of Luclin (with the Beastlord class) released!