I found 2 bugs in the ntpd init script, both in the ntptimeset section:

1. /etc/ntp.conf used instead of $NTP_CONF (where $NTP_CONF is used everywhere else)
2. broken use of if <condition> && success || failure: if the NTPD_BIND invocation returned non-zero (such as if ntpd is running, there is a failure to bind, etc...) the 'echo "no server configured"' command is executed.

Correct (or, at least, more correct):

 ntptimeset)
   if grep -v 127.127.1.0 $NTP_CONF | grep ^server >/dev/null; then
     $NTPD_BIN $NTPD_OPTIONS -c $NTP_CONF -q
   else
     echo "no server configured"
   fi
 ;;