I played around and figured out it was VoiceAttack. Despite the selection in Vaicom, "Hide On-Screen Text" being marked off, text still remains off. It seems that checkbox in Vaicom, once selected, is permanent. Vaicom appends this to the gameMessages.lua file, removing it resolves the issue:
-- VAICOM PRO server-side script
-- gameMessages.lua (append)
-- www.vaicompro.com
function show()
makeExist()
selectHmdSkin()
window:setVisible(false)
end
Ahdidaas's post in n00b question was marked as the answer