Clicking the log out button in the header does not seem to affect anything.
Not able to replicate on my end. Might be some odd cookie issue however.
Had this happen this morning and the only way that I could get it to go away was to clear all of my cookies for the site and start anew. So, definitely think that we are still seeing some odd cookie issues with the site.
This is an ongoing problem on webdevel but should not exist on bmantest. It's caused by being outside of the sandbox.