Let's see if I can reconstruct this mess.

I registered two accounts, norttest1 and norttest2. I gave norttest1 the red face avatar and norttest2 the Harvard avatar.
I changed norttest2's username to norttest3, after which it lost its avatar.
I changed norttest1's username to norttest2, after which it gained norttest2's avatar in place of its own. So avatars are associated with usernames.
I registered a new account (this one) and gave it the username norttest1. I got the "norttest1 messages dialog" menu and could edit my posts, but couldn't update my profile — when I tried to, it complained of username overlap. (There was no other account called norttest1 at this time.) Also, there was no avatar box — not even the default gray box avatar.
I tried to change the username of then-norttest2 (originally norttest1) back to norttest1, which was occupied by the sort-of-account mentioned above. The change didn't go through, but didn't give an error message.
I tried to register a new account called norttest3. That didn't work. That part is described in detail above.
I changed the username of the sort-of-account norttest1 (not the original norttest1, which at that time was called norttest2) to norttest4, at which point it became a full-fledged account, with the gray box avatar and the ability to make a profile and so on. (I don't think I tested blog post creation on the sort-of-account.) Then I changed its username back to norttest1, which worked perfectly.