If invalid SSML is entered into the "Say Something with Text-To-Speech" action, and the "Use Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML)" option is checked, clicking "Preview" will pop up a "Speech Error" dialog; Closing this dialog will revert the "Stop" button back to "Preview" as it should, however other UI elements (Voice, Channel, Volume, and Rate) remain grayed out until either a valid preview has been played (and stopped manually or automatically), or the editing window is closed and reopened.
This may apply to other issues that pop up the "Speech Error" window, but I don't have a method to force a different error.
As an aside, the "Effect Set" dropdown is not grayed out while previewing, even though changing it has no effect on the active TTS preview.
EDIT: Fixed in v1.8.3.16