I think you'll find this to be an issue with GTK as opposed to FVWM mishandling anything.
It's possible, but my concern is why things work as expected in other window managers. For what it's worth, here is some additional xprop information. App as opened in fullscreen mode: http://www.theskyiscrape.com/scott/fullscreen.txt App after toggling fullscreen and when (incorrectly) in maximized mode: http://www.theskyiscrape.com/scott/maximized.txt App after toggled back into fullscreen and out, such that it is now the correct size: http://www.theskyiscrape.com/scott/correct.txt I'm not an expert but these results seem weird. Maximized.txt says that it is still in fullscreen, if I'm reading this correctly? Yet the fvwm window decorations are visible and everything.. Confused, Scott