Random Arenas Glitch?

I've had this happen twice to me in random arenas. We only had a 3 person max players. Someone in-game told me that it was because the fourth person had loaded first, then exited. I don't think that's true because I've seen a greyed-out name of someone who quit before I joined. Can anyone tell me if this is really a glitch, or if I'm just unlucky. I think the other person that told me someone quit before I joined was incorrect, when I joined, there were 3 people's bars. One person(blah blah) immedeatly(just woke up, sp is wrong) quit, which is what I think the other player saw blah blah quit, then I said the thing about only 3 people max. I have the unedited screenshot, and the three of us ARE 1,2,3.
Also note that in one screen, there are two people that are third teammate.
Proof:
http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/306/glitch17vp.jpg
http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/2333/glitch28il.jpg

It's exactly what you think it is--a glitch.

If they had quit before you loaded they would still appear in the Party window as a greyed-out bar. It's a glitch.

No, one person quit the game before you joined. If you zone and someones bar is grey, the person willl be removed. It's the same with this.

You aren't zoning here though. The person should appear in grey.

Whenever you enter a new area, you are zoning. So, you are, acutally.

I have nothing to do atm so I just tested this out. Logged onto both of my accounts and teamed up at LA. Zoned outside, but closed one GW game before the game loaded. The party menu showed only one of my characters.

Alright, I see what you're talking about now. If your character has not actually entered the area yet (i.e. hasn't finished zoning), then yes, it can happen. The window of time is just extremely narrow unless you're on dial-up (which is something I probably should have thought of earlier).

TheRanger is, indeed, correct. If you load into it and they leave, it was like they were never there.