I'm bumping this because yet again I need Outlook to BEHAVE!
Not my post initially but I have a similar problem.
What's actually happening for me is that whenever outlook comes across an = it cuts off the 2 characters that follow the = so if my link is
<a href='http://www.mysite.com'>
the link becomes
<a href=ttp://www.mysite.com'>
and if it's
<a href=http://www.mysite.com>
it becomes
<a href=tp://www.mysite.com>
I can't see a reason for this and I can work around all my = except this one.
Any ideas?