Is it worth patching to 1.3? Yes! Go to TELP's MM9 site, click on Patches, and read all the fixes that are provided by the 1.3 patch. However....The fact that your fighter's picture changes is not a good sign. It is a bug, but not in the game. This indicates that your files are corrupted. This happens sometimes upon installation under WinXP or Win2k. The changing pictures is a small problem. Eventually the game will become unplayable.
I suspect that this corruption is caused by anti-virus software, but I really don't know. If you would like to help investigate that, write me at telphelp@yahoo.com. I will need to see a directory listing of your installation and can help you with that if you need it.
Once we figure out what's causing the corruption you can re-install, but it is possible (likely, I think) that the picture will not revert. There *might* be other unnoticed changes as well, but I think that you should be OK just to re-start from a save made before the promotion.
