Ok, two machines, both running same version of Radiant.
One WILL make detail brushes that if you close and reopen a map the detail brushes are still 'detail'.
The other machine WILL NOT. You can make every damn brush detail if you want, and when you compile OR reopen the map, all are reset to 'structural'.
Anyone else seen this? I've used every possible method to set them to 'detail', they just are not 'saved' as such when the map is compiled or reopened. HUGE pain in *** .
Have those set just as you said...always did. Anyone else? Huge pain to transfer the file to another machine via CD to finish it.... can't do a good compile with a closed skybox either as the VIS data is too big without detailing all the small crap.
I must fix my previous response.
In the Edit-->Preferences window, the field is titled "Use quake3 .map format" Make sure it is NOT checked. I wrote the previous response backward!