So for those of you who were helping me in my icon drama over here, I finally got a response from my support request:

Thank you for your report. The Content Delivery Network (CDN) used by LiveJournal to display some content, such as userpics, is currently experiencing an issue with incorrect content stored in its cache. This is causing userpics to display incorrectly to some users; please note that userpics are not being physically replaced, they are just displaying incorrectly.

LiveJournal developers have now cleared the CDN cache and your userpics should now all be displaying correctly for you. If this is not the case, please try clearing your browser's cache, as explained in the FAQ located at http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=160.

I still say that's not a good sign for them.