Anyone seen a solution to this yet?

[zenga]

would this macro do anyting? it sounds like the 'old' profession skill could be still open, but hidden

/run CloseTradeSkill()
/cast Alchemy

[riffraff]

it sounds like the 'old' profession skill could be still open, but hidden

Nope when this happens your skill shows up in the profession tab, with the proper amount of skillpoints, but the profession button is gone (along with any secondary one like goblin engineering or build campfire). Also if you had put the profession button on your action bar that will be gone. (If it's only greyed out then you haven't changed zones or logged out and can recover by the usual /cast Alchemy)

I haven't seen this problem show up with professions that were maxxed out. But for all my chars I was trying to get professions leveled up in time for the expansion I've run into this nasty, nasty bug too many times.