Link Click Behaviors

In light of the recent change eliminating the signature line from posts, I've started using the pop-out list that you get when you click on a poster's username to the left of their forum post, like this: Attachment 73968 in order to visit vendor's websites.

This works really well, except for one th9ing. When I click on a link in the body of a message, the link opens in a new tab. When I click on a link in the little list associated with the username, however, the link opens in the same tab, forcing me to backtrack to get back to where I started at. Is there any chance that the behavior of the links in the pop-out list can be made to behave like an in-post link does?

Thanks!