To be honest that's probably what I thought your reply would be because I have come across the problem several times, but then for no specific reason it just seems to do what you want it to do.
"It seems to be something with looking in the template folder whilst Word is open, but then again that could be a coincidence also.
Just as a matter of interest, because I mainly use Word for typing letters, I have my normal.dot file set up with my letter-head and signature.
Because it's not very often that it's not required, then it's no big problem on those odd occasions just to delete the text and replace it as necessary.
Good luck.