It appears this is caused by the actual preference panels losing their association with the System Preferences application. Although I haven't seen a cause listed anywhere, the cure is relatively easy. Thanks to some anonymous poster on one of the various OS X boards, here's what you need to do to repair them:
- In the Finder, navigate to the /System/Library/PreferencePanes folder on your OS X hard drive.
- Select any one of the panes and do File -> Show Info (command-I). Then pick the "Open with application" drop down item. If you're having this problem, it will probably read "Not Applicable" as the application to use. This is what we'll fix.
- Click on the icon next to Not Applicable and select "Other...". When the file dialog comes up, change "Recommended Applications" to "All Applications". Scroll down and select System Preferences and hit the "Add" button.
- You will get a warning box stating "You don't have privileges to change the application for this document only." It goes on to explain that if you make this change, it will affect all documents with the "prefPane" extension. This is exactly what we want to do, so hit "Continue".

