Solved
I also have this issue. I just switched to lockinfo from intelliscreenx and did not have this problem before. Touching the BiteSms statusbar bubble now opens notification center instead of the quick reply, and yes that is when I only have 1 message. This is a big feature I'll miss, I'll email the dev of lockinfo and maybe he can fix it. I shouldn't have to disable all my statusbar activators just to get this to work, but doing that doesn't solve the issue either.
Edit: I believe I found the reason for this happening. If you change the setting in Lockinfo where the notification center pulldown is replaced by Infoshade, then when you tap the Bitesms bubble it will open notfication center ( or Infoshade in this case). If you change that setting back to using either the lockinfo customized notification center or standard notification center then tapping the Bitesms bubble with open the quick reply the way it should. Hopefully this helps some other people out.