Couldn't say what's ultimately causing this. But FireBug shows the HTML is different between my FF8 and IE9.
In IE9:
<div class="ui-menubutton" id="j_idt44:j_idt45">
<button name="j_idt44:j_idt45_button"
class="ui-button ui-widget ui-state-default ui-corner-all ui-button-text-icon-left"
id="j_idt44:j_idt45_button" type="button">
<span class="ui-button-icon-left ui-icon ui-icon-triangle-1-s"/>
<span class="ui-button-text">Options</span>
</button>
</div>
In FF8:
<div class="ui-menubutton" id="j_idt44:j_idt45">
<button class="ui-button ui-widget ui-state-default ui-corner-all ui-button-text-icon-left ui-button-text-icon-primary"
type="button" name="j_idt44:j_idt45_button" id="j_idt44:j_idt45_button" role="button" aria-disabled="false">
<span class="ui-button-icon-primary ui-icon ui-icon-triangle-1-s"></span>
<span class="ui-button-text">
<span class="ui-button-icon-left ui-icon ui-icon-triangle-1-s"></span>
<span class="ui-button-text">Options</span>
</span>
</button>
</div>