@InfraBlue,
I rarely quote, figuring people can see the Reply clue and click on it, but if I do, I use the quote button on a person's post, or, rarely, just copy a sentence. So I don't use BBC code in the top of the answer space to do that.. but I'm wondering if you have enabled the quote button in your Preferences page. Excuse me if you have done that already, possibly long ago.