image-replace spans appearing links

I'm seeing <span class="image-replace"></span> appearing in the page display text of the node links for reply/edit/delete in forum topics. It is generated by line 78 of advanced_forum_preprocess_node.inc.
Also, the Post Reply text is not completely covered by the image (at the top left).
See attached nodelinks.png for example.

In the topic display, I also see the <span class="image-replace"></span> appear for the New topic link. This one is line 387 of core-overrides.inc
See topiclist.png for example.