That's one I've never figured out... :(
I looked through settings again today but didn't see anything. It removes quotes within quoted posts for me as well.
Yep! That's ^ what the QUOTE tags do. Technically you can use them without all the stuff that follows the =, and you can even replace things to make it say whatever you want, like such:
:giggle (man giggle)
It could be a plugin you have on Chrome that is the culprit - you could, if you want to use Chrome, disable your plugins then activate them one by one. Once you find the point where it does it to you, you've got your trouble-maker. (Try clearing your cache before doing this just to keep things...
I've seen other people have the same issue. I'm almost positive it's browser related - do you have the option to try another or is the one you're on your only choice?