Yep. It was not present in 1.7 berta 2.
Check the attached screen shot.
The 1st and 4th messages are exactly the same.
If answer the sender in the latest message, my reply unifies the duplicates under one thread again (one dupe is eliminated).
When the sender replies back to me, again the dupe will show.
The dupe always shows the mail address as name.
If you want to reproduce this error, just start a thread with another email address and answer back and forth a couple of times.