There are three different ways to reply to a post. It looks like you have the "Quick Reply" box enabled and that always shows a reply box beneath the post you are viewing.

You can also click the "Reply" button that shows at the top of the post you're replying to. If you use that button, you will either get a plain text editor to type your reply into or if you click on the button "HTML Editor / Text Tools" that shows in the bottom left of the reply box, you will get a tool bar in the edit window that lets you change fonts, colors, add bullets, the Greek Letter "Omega" gives you access to the symbols like ©, ®, °, or ¢. The smiley face lets you choose from several emoticons.

If you're on dial-up, the fancy editor can take a while to load but if you want to dress up your post, it may be worth a wait, once in a while.