Hi James, thanks for the heads up! When this plugin was initially released font awesome was not allowed in WordPress because it was not yet GPL compatible. Without going into all the details, what you're seeing is a carry over from that time. I'll get that fixed in the next release. I'm glad you were able to implement a temporary fix.
Quick unrelated question, were you able to get your I.E. 9 issue figured out using the method I suggested the other day?
