Conflict between Org-Mode versions?

[Michael Hannon <jm_hannon@yahoo.com>]

Greetings.  I'm trying to learn about Org-Mode.  My goal is mainly to learn to
use the Babel extension, but I'm trying to get a good feel for Org-Mode before
I do that.

I've been having some difficulties with inconsistencies between the behavior
described in Org-Mode tutorials and the behavior of Org-Mode on my system.
(And yes, I have read the FAQ about this; please bear with me.)

I'm running Emacs 23.2.1 on a Fedora 14 linux (64-bit) system.  This version
of Emacs came with Org-Mode 6.x installed.

Having read about the rapid evolution of Org-Mode, I downloaded the latest
stable version, 7.5.  I've appended the Org-related portion of my .emacs file.
It appears to me that my local (7.5) version of Org-Mode should supersede the
version (6.x) that came in the Fedora package, i.e., based on the position in
"load-path".

This made things a little saner, but it didn't eliminate the inconsistencies.
I was afraid that, despite the above, there might be some interplay between
the original Org-Mode and the version that I downloaded, so I removed the
entire org directory:

    /usr/share/emacs/23.2/lisp/org

Is there something else that I can/should do to make sure that the original
Org-Mode is really gone?

Here are a couple of the inconsistencies to which I've been referring:

    (1) When I use C-c C-t to mark a task as DONE, no timestamp appears.

    (2) When I use the construct:

            [[URL] [description]]

        the line does NOT collapse to:

            "description"

        when I add the closing bracket, and if I export to HTML or PDF, I
        get the whole ugly line, brackets and all.

Please understand that I don't have any burning need to solve these exact
problems.  I'd just like the tutorial material to work as advertised on my
system.

Thanks for any advice you can provide.

-- Mike

Appendix: The part of my .emacs file that pertains to Org-Mode
--------------------------------------------------------------

(setq load-path (cons "/usr/local/org/org-7.5/lisp" load-path))
(setq load-path (cons "/usr/local/org/org-7.5/contrib/lisp" load-path))
(require 'org-install)

(org-babel-do-load-languages
  'org-babel-load-languages
  '((emacs-lisp . t)
    (R . t)
    (python . t)
    (sh . t)
   )
)

(require 'ob-R)
(require 'ob-python)
(require 'ob-sh)

(defun my-org-confirm-babel-evaluate (lang body)
    (not (or (string= lang "R")
             (string= lang "python")
             (string= lang "sh")
         )
    )
)

(setq org-confirm-babel-evaluate 'my-org-confirm-babel-evaluate)