How do I get Krita to reuse the current brush thumbnail?

Can you establish common factors with the Reddit user?
e.g. krita version number, operating system, mouse or tablet stylus, etc.
(I don’t have this problem with the 5.1.5 appimage on Linux.)

You could try making a backup copy (for later restoration) of all your config files and the entire resources folder, then delete them all and start krita to get a fresh default working installation - to see if that changes anything.