I think I have narrowed this issue down to only being within Playlists. If I select "Imported this month", the Links do not show up. If I go in and edit a tag for one MP3, then menu shows up. I don't see this behavior in the audio view though.
Actually, now that I checked as I am writing this, the links menu goes away right when I select Playlists itself, so something is tied to clicking on that.
Hope this helps.