There is a Report pack for sharepoint which attempts to actually be usable.
www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx
i think it still sucks though, compared to other portal sw where you actually have audit trails OOB.
HOWEVER,
the route I would reccomend if you are just looking to monitor/log a selection of document libraries/lists etc would be the handy dandy event sink thing. since im not a developer i wont pretend that i know much about it, other than i played with a sample from MSDN and it had a nice console application for seeing all activity on a document library.. im sure someone here knows which article im referring to.
at least i pointed you in the right direction im hoping,