Hi Norm,

I believe these guys are on the right track.

After hitting "reply" to a message... if Outlook thinks that you are "tampering" with the original message, it will "mark your comments" with whatever text is in that property setting. I've played with different settings trying to get mine to gray out but can't seem to get mine to gray out. I have included a screen shot of our settings and maybe you could compare with yours...

Large picture below. Might take a few seconds for it to appear...