Are there any mods that make the journal in any way useful?

Agreed. Playing Zubmariner for a few days, I realize that I've just learned where to go for all the quests since finding pertinent information is so awful in the in-game journal

YES. The journal is utterly useless, so you have to play the game alongside Google where you can ask "For quest X, where was I supposed to go again?" or play with a dead tree notebook where you jot that stuff down the way primitive people did when they played computer games at the dawn of time.

What journal are you talking about, do you mean the menu that pops up when there are story events, or one of the items in the game? Either way, I'm not sure why your so upset about it.

Agreed, most annoying thing in game so far aside from how fast fuel and supplies go, I've screwed up some good opportunities a couple times because I couldn't properly keep track of my current objectives. I lost any access to red honey whatsoever.