The avatar system seems to be having some problems at the moment - sometimes old avatars will be displayed instead of the current one so if you didn't have an avatar you may occasionally get nothing. It might just be an impression but I think it's gotten worse in the past few days with the increased activity.
There's actually already http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1147166-forum-update-feedback-discussion/ in Community Discussion, if you have any further questions you should ask over there - but hopefully this will be resolved soon.