The situation is following:

the code snippet:
...
inBuffer.position(inBuffer.limit());
message.appendWrite(goodBuffer).appendRead(inBuffer).transfer();
...

will result in incomplete i2c transaction due to stop condition will not be generated.
The problem is that
impl/I2CCombinedMessage.transfer() marks last message as to be followed by stop condition by doing:

flag = I2CSlaveImpl.I2C_COMBINED_END;

and calls to
int res = ((I2CSlaveImpl)message.device).transfer(flag, skip, message.buf);
============

In it's turn, I2CSlaveImpl.transfer() would immediately return 0 (a Message is not being processed on native layer) if provided buffer's remaining() is equal to 0:

    int transfer(int flag, int skip, ByteBuffer buf) throws
            UnavailableDeviceException, ClosedDeviceException, IOException {
        int ret = 0;
        ByteBuffer toSend;

        if (!buf.hasRemaining()) {
            return 0;
        }
...
}
===============

As the consequence, real life sensor will still wait for stop condition to
reset, and further attempts to communicate to it result in communication
errors/hang ups.