I would suggest downloading the client again from Steam and make sure you do not alter anything other than the eqhosts.txt file and create the shortcut to eqgame.exe with the patchme argument as the Play Guide says.
It sounds like your UI files were somehow corrupted or updated, or maybe you copied some bad files over to your RoF2 folder from a previous install. Getting a clean install and not modifying or patching anything should get you up and working without issues.
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