Comment 3 for bug 69091

The issue you describe here is even more odd. I don't understand why an empty ~/.fonts.conf makes any difference, there are no conflicts in this case.
The problem I was talking about is that it's not clear what the priority is between Xft resources and the settings in ~/.fonts.conf . If both conflict (eg having the Xft.hintstyle=hintmedium resources, and setting hintstyle to hintfull in ~/.fonts.conf), then a priority should be clearly made, and every apps should follow it.