I believe regular flamer is considered tier 1, which I think is not accepted by some traders. I could be wrong though.
The reloading thing sounds mysterious, if I understand you correctly. The whole weapon box, except for where the aiming icon is (and it shouldn't be there for the flamer), should allow you to reload. This is the same for all weapons. If anything it might be that the callback to clicking the weapon box is intercepted by the (invisible) aiming icon. Is that where you tried to click?