Everything was installed, however it seems that the webpart itself was altered to set the visibility of that section to hidden.
If this happens to anyone else check out Travis Wright's post here :
http://blogs.technet.com/b/servicemanager/archive/2012/02/06/customizing-the-scsm-2012-self-service-portal-how-do-i-change-the-need-help-or-description-text.aspx as that outlines how to change the top text and add / remove the create request button at the
bottom.