Nice to see a well written post. 😉
Ok, first and foremost, 0.2.4 is way outdated. I strongly suggest that you upgrade to the latest nightly. Look around at http://nightlies.mt-daapd.org
Yes, your first problem is related to VBR files. If mt-daapd is set to scan at level 0 it will display no or errnous info for VBR files. A scan at level 1 or 2 does take considerably longer though. Especially on a slug.
If you upgrade to the latest nightly, be sure to have your config file overwritten with the default one. The format and many other things changed, so the 0.2.4 file is not compatible anymore.
Other than that, you’ll find that mt-daapd has grown a lot 😉