We may have found something....
Although the sopc builder lets you select OLD_DATA for the memory blocks, if you look deeply enough into the generated stuff the memory is marked 'dual clock' - even though the same 'avalon clock' is requested on the component.
Dual clock operation can't do 'old data' (for good reason).
Quartos 12 has an extra option on the memory block for 'single clock operation', unfortunately we can't build with that without major changes.
See:
http://www.altera.com/support/kdb/solutions/rd04172006_685.html?gsa_pos=2&wt.oss_r=1&wt.oss=altsyncram%20parameters and:
http://www.alteraforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3648