The behavior of JSON marshaling when the MarshalText method is used isn't well-specified:

If no MarshalJSON method is present but the value implements encoding.TextMarshaler instead, Marshal calls its MarshalText method. The nil pointer exception is not strictly necessary but mimics a similar, necessary exception in the behavior of UnmarshalJSON.

Note that it says that MarshalJSON is called "to produce JSON", but there's nothing indicating that MarshalText produces a JSON string (i.e., the value is escaped as a string and surrounding quotes are added).

Compare with the docs about UnmarshalText (docs added in 1.8):

Otherwise, if the value implements encoding.TextUnmarshaler and the input is a JSON quoted string, Unmarshal calls that value's UnmarshalText method with the unquoted form of the string.

I can send a CL later.