In the LBN forum they have an extra script (textfield-replace.js) on the post pages where your text is entered. This is for the text entry when starting a thread - the prompts in the text fields are colored gray and then change to black when you enter your own text.
Although that script should probably only load on the page to start a thread, it also loads when posting a reply (most likely since the query portion of their respective URL's start with the same text: ?com=post&forum=1014). Usually it doesn't affect anything because the script has loaded and is running before you can start entering in any text - however, since the script doesn't run until the page fully loads, if there is something causing the page load to be slower than usual (e.g. a large image, slow connection, etc.), it is possible to begin entering text while some elements on the page are still loading - which will cause the text to be changed to gray when the textfield-replace.js script starts running after the page finishes loading.
The few obvious solutions are: only have the script load on the page to start threads by doing a more accurate server side URL match or changing the script to run when the DOM has loaded instead of waiting for a complete page load or inserting the script on the page after the input form so it executes right after the text field elements are loaded. Since the script is only needed when starting a thread, the first solution seems logical enough - although changing when the script starts running is probably not a bad idea in any case.
Has anyone ever seen this problem in a forum other than LBN? If so, my theory is probably incorrect - [font style="color:#777;"]although I can recreate the issue consistently for reply titles in LBN[/font] - so there is an issue there regardless.