I recently upgraded from 4.0.9 to 4.2.3 and some users tell me that the behaviour of mandatory custom field changed.
I recovered the old installation and DB from backups and the mistery is solved: from 4.0.9 to 4.2.3, the file share/html/Ticket/Modify.html changed in such a way that my "Default" callback was actually breaking custom field validation in 4.0.9, and is not any more breaking it in 4.2.3.
Best regards, Bergonz -- RT Training - Dallas May 20-21 http://bestpractical.com/training