>> (unlike Emacs, which display the circumflex to the right of the a +
>> acute accent grapheme).
>
> Hmm... something strange happens with DejaVu Sans Mono.  I tried two
> different font backends, and they both display the circumflex
> incorrectly.  That doesn't happen with other monospaced fonts I tried.
>
> I have no idea what's going on here, sorry.
>
> In any case, the issue at hand is not about this particular display
> with this particular font, it's more general.

That I agree with.

Steve Berman