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Yup, I played a monk through the OC and then took him through HOTU and I don't think I ever used quivering palm. It always seemed like the tougher enemies always had some immunity or resistance to it and the enemies easily vulnerable were easy to damage and kill with regular blows.
Stunning fist had a similar problem. Both these strikes sound cool, but in actual practice, just dealing out as much regular damage as quickly as you can works better. Never used either special strike.
It strikes me as analagous to some of the spells available to magic users. Sleep, stun, dominate, charm monster etc all sound initially like they would be useful, but it usually works out to be better to just deal as much direct damage (or via a summoned creature I suppose, depending on play style) as possible. You only get the XP points for killing the creatures and it is what you are ultimately going to do to a charmed or dominated creature anyway, once the spell wears off. Plus a lot of these are low level spells that often don't work on the tougher enemies.
This is as opposed to Baldur's Gate and BG II where some of these ancillary spells could really make a difference in a fight. Of course it worked both ways and there were times when everything went down hill quick when one of my party was magically turned against us. Ended up having to reload a few times when there was a really tough close fight and all of a sudden a party member became hostile. Even stun, confusion or fear could make a difference if the fight was close and you suddenly had one less party member doing their part. The only thing that saved me sometimes was having a paladin with a whole bunch of divine dispell magic spells ready.
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