Ed, We re-worked the Build Text VI for 7.1 to address some issues which is why it behaves different. What you are seeing is that you are trying to configure a non defined variable. When you type in the variable name, the VI applies the default settings to that variable, until you change them. So on the first variable this causes the settings you had set to be lost. However once the variable is defined the settings should follow that variable.
I have made a report of this so that it can be looked into. Evan National Instruments
