http://code.google.com/p/jmonkeyengine/source/detail?spec=svn9389&r=9389
That caused the StringBlock to be recreated every
time the text was set to "". Doing this blew away
90% of BitmapText's internal state causing subsequent
text to be the wrong size, misaligned, etc.
The original reason for the change needs to be revisited.
Big comment left in code with the original change commented
out.
git-svn-id: https://jmonkeyengine.googlecode.com/svn/trunk@9765 75d07b2b-3a1a-0410-a2c5-0572b91ccdca