[Devel] Possible regression?

[Rayiner Hashem]

Hello, this is Rayiner Hashem. I've been using FreeType 2.1.4 RC-2 for a while 
now, and recently switched to 2.1.4. In doing so, I noticed a degradation in 
italic font rendering. The difference can be seen at:

http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gtg990h/font-compare.png

The top image is from FreeType 2.1.4 while the bottom image is from 2.1.4-RC2. 
Both are just the "stock" tarballs from the FreeType FTP site, with no 
changes before compiling. If you look at the images, you'll notice the 
following defects in 2.1.4-final's rendering.

1) On the 8-pt line, the 'p' in "pt"
2) On the 8-pt line, the "yp" in "FreeType"
3) On the 10-pt line, the 'p' in "pt"
4) On the 10-pt line, the "yp" in "FreeType"
5) On the 12-pt line, the 'p' in "pt"
6) On the 12-pt line, the word "rendered"

Besides that, in just general use, sites that use italic fonts extensively 
look much worse in terms of stroke weighting across lines. 

My setup:
Gentoo 1.4 (not using the vendor FreeType, but the one's from the website)
KDE 3.1.1 + Xft2/FontConfig
XFree86 4.3
Adobe WebType Type1 fonts. 
Dell Inspiron 8200 LCD (1600x1200 at 133dpi).

Thanks in advance,
        Rayiner Hashem.