A bit of an update - I have fixed the "logged in as anonymous"-only-while-looking-at-items-or-bestiary by switching from IE to FireFox today. (A permanent switch for me, it fights for disk access a lot less than IE ever did.) Whatever the bug is, it seems to be IE specific.
I'm kind of curious about a couple of concepts of the karma system, however. First, why aren't item/bestiary and forum karma separate? I post genuinely useful things or not-so-common questions on items, and they are rated down by what seems like an army of people who rate everything down, and they never seem to recover. (Sorry to sound like the ranters in other posts, but I'd bet if you ran stats, more 1's and 2' are given than 3's and 4's. I don't count 5's, most people reserve those for things that deserve it) I fail to see how what I write about items or creatures in the bestiary correlates to my ability to rate forum posts.
Also, if karma starts a 3, someone who has never posted can rate, but someone with hundreds of posts and a 2.9 karma is unqualified to rate by comparison? (Unless there is a minimum number of posts, and I'm just missing it.)