If reportRunner is in View scope or higher, the input fields should retain their value without requiring you to do anything at all. When a
JSF page is displayed, the current values of the properties will be displayed automatically. That's Request Scope doesn't work - a whole new bean would have been created with whatever values the bean had initialized to.
You seem to be overcomplicating this operation. If you want an AJAX-style auto-submit of a value on enter, you don't need valuechangelisteners, since the normal JSF lifecycle is going to set the property for you. However, I have doubts about using raw JavaScript to submit the JSF form. You're better off using an AJAX-aware tagset such as RichFaces or IceFaces or use the JSF2 AJAX features.
The secret of how to be miserable is to constantly expect things are going to happen the way that they are "supposed" to happen.
You can have faith, which carries the understanding that you may be disappointed. Then there's being a willfully-blind idiot, which virtually guarantees it.