torches placed on the ground in 1.4.3 show the flare animation in 1.4.4 even though they were teleported to the wall

I'm not quite following what you mean by this, can you supply a screenshot please?

Is that really an issue since 1.4.3 was never released ?

Yep, same for me, if you place a torch on 1.4.3 and update to 1.4.4, the fire sprite bugs around and even flies trough walls!

Almost the same for me, I placed torches in 1.4.2 (official release) and those bug out and fly around. It only happens with the 1.4.2 torches, not with 1.3.X or earlier releases.

I skipped 1.4.3, so no results for that situation
Definatly a duplicate of MC-2497, the effects and problem are the same. This issue can be closed as duplicate

Possible duplicate of MC-2497?

Ali describes it better IMO. I'm seeing flames jumping all over the screen. It's so distracting that I've abandoned playing for now, hopefully it will be soon fixed. I've only played with released versions, so if 1.4.3 was never released, that may not be the version the OP intended.

Linux astaroth 3.6.6-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon Nov 5 11:57:22 CET 2012 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Ok, thanks for the hint.