Shonky, if I may humbly offer the correction;
100K in this case "sources" current. I2C is an open-drain bus where open-drain typically denotes that the device sinks on demand while the pull-up resistor sources the needed current/voltage to bring the bus to V+. (I know you know this. My fingers tend to type things I wasn't thinking too. It's like they are on autopilot. )
Yep and I'm saying a device on the bus possibly couldn't sink enough current to pull the SDA sufficiently low - so the solution was possibly a weaker pull up. It is still strange though.
This then results in the slow rise times you have seen when whichever device stops pulling SDA low.
We're talking about the same thing but you're talking about the effect I think whilst I'm thinking of the cause.