hmm.. i think its new stuff with xfree 4.3 (in the xfree package i think) i have parts of rc1 mixed with 8.1.. works fine but when i first installed i got errors for a missing Xft-2.0-1.so.lib i think it was.. i run kde but got the error when launching gaim.. anyways havn't gotten around to fixing it but i think its related xft is font rendering lib of some sort.. and x4.3 upgraded a bunch o' font type stuff i think.
edit:
just looked around in the xf86 4.3 docs, you can d/l Xft fontconfig.org and that should fix your problems.. i'm gonna go give it a try now myself.
and final edit:
d/l'd xft 2.1 and installed it and it fixed my problems, now i got to go recompile mozilla 1.3 so i can use the knifty AAing