It may be a 'Pi' specific thing.
I am thinking it is more of a Rasperian thing, under Arch in MinePeon they run fine, I downloaded Rasperian last night and everything went wonkey like you guys are experiencing.
Neil
@Neil , Do you have jaycar in NZ ,
http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=XC4946 I hope this hub works on the pi 5Volt/3A USB2.0

(wrong Quote sorry)