Even though it sounds like you've solved this, I thought I would post a couple of possible solutions, in case someone else searches out this message in the future.
I haven't heard of this problem with Text and Font dialog. But for other dialogs with this problem, docking the dialog has helped. I realize this is a huge dialog, and not really amenable to docking. But you could dock it, to reach the apply button, and then undock, once again.
To be honest, I never use that dialog anymore. Not since all the Text features have been put on the control bar. I've been told that the Text and Font dialog is expected to be getting some more features in the future. So maybe we will need it once again someday. But for now, it's not really needed anyway.
