Only a few fonts seem to be affected at a few pixel sizes.

Unfortunately ArialRegular.ttf at 12..14 pixels is one of them. Since
- this font is often used on Solaris10 as the system UI font
- in exactly these problematic sizes
- the freetype version there exhibits the problem
- many displays are run with 16bit colordepth but no XRENDER
we run into the problem in our UI texts.

Created attachment 40900 [details]
file menu with FT2.1.9

Created attachment 40901 [details]
file menu with FT2.1.10

@UL/MH: please set a target. I'd suggest P4/OOo2.2 if the the worst case 
scenario I outlined in my second comment wasn't the work environment in some 
well known company...

Fixed in CWS ft2109 mono.

Testing hints:
- only systems with freetype version <2.1.10 are affected (i.e. the library
version is <= libfreetype.so.6.3.7)
- only X11 platforms are affected, not WIN
- only for monochrome text (use colordepth<=16bit when no XRENDER available,
else use colordepth==8, or set the environment variable SAL_ANTIALIAS_DISABLE=0)
- to see the problem better disable native X11 fonts (set the environment
variable SAL_ENABLE_NATIVE_XFONTS=0)
- only certain fonts are affected
- if a Writer document is used to look for these fonts then please enable
"Web-Layout"

@SBA: please verify in CWS ft2109mono (see the testing hints above)

@MH/UF: please set a target milestone

SBA: Verified in CWS ft2006mono.

reviewed

adjusting target

Problem seems to be fixed in OOE_m6 but is still there in SRC_m196 (broken since
m194).
freetype2-2.2.1.20061027-21.1, openSUSE 10.2
so looks like ft2109 works but ft2109mono_SRC680 not?

m196 - http://linux.ee/~vagula/ooshots/mono.png 
rc2 - http://linux.ee/~vagula/ooshots/mono1.png

@vagula: Thanks for the screenshots. They show that the problem you are seeing
is a duplicate of issue 72384, but not to this issue here.

Closing this issue again.