[RyanCahoon]

After reading the linked page about how touch lamps work, it seems to me that the starter coil in your old lamp that you mentioned is most likely what's causing the new lamp to change. Fluorescent starter circuits work by pulsing current on and off (PWM anyone?) through the fluorescent gas, which helps to ease the atoms into the charged state, which is what causes them to fluoresce. Fluorescent lamps also usually use a transformer to step the voltage up that they use to power the lamp. So here you have a high voltage, fluctuating electric field. High voltage means the field is large, and allows the electrons to move around a lot (same idea that enables things like lightning and Jacob's Ladders) this fluctuating field is probably disrupting the fluctuating field that exists in the touch lamp (like inductive power), causing enough of a disturbance that to the device, it appears as if something has touched it.

That would be my guess.

--Ryan