Fast User Switching - Switch User Icon Disappearing?

OK, I've got to ask this question as it's driving me nuts. Does anyone else find, in OS X 10.4.2, that the icon in the menubar that allows you to switch users disappears after each reboot? I setup my PowerBook so that it displayed a user icon on the menubar rather than the user's short name but each time I reboot my laptop it disappears. In order to view the icon again I end up going into System Preferences, selecting Accounts, unlocking my access to Login Options, and *BANG* the icon magically appears again. The option to "enable fast user switching" was enabled all the time.

Seriously, does anyone else suffer from this and, if so, WTF? Damned if this happened under 10.3...