No idea about 3.9 images and absolutely no spare time to check.

Basic problem - if you set your fonts to be TTCFonts (like Bitstream  
Vera 12 normal, the one I use for pretty much all the fonts you can  
set in 'appearance->system fonts') then any time #ascent is sent to  
the font you are in trouble.

TTCFont asks the fallbackFont for its ascent. FixedFaceFont asks its  
baseFont. IF your default text font is a TTCFont, then it will ask  
its fallbackFont and on and on.

I don't know anything about how the fonts were changed for i18n etc  
but it certainly looks odd at face value to have the main font asking  
its fallback about the ascent. FreetypeFonts don't, as a counter- 
example.

tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Fractured Idiom:- IDIOS AMIGOS - We're wild and crazy guys!