I hasten to say I will not be reusing this exploit until it is confirmed that it is *not* an exploit, and I discovered it by pure accident. I have reproduced it once to confirm my theory that it is reproducible only.
This is not just a activation issue. The ui animations happen in distinct jumps now, the whole UI is no longer smooth. You do get the grey "activation" animation, but its just so short that most of the time you won't see it before the next UI update (about every 1-2 seconds)
The UI only seems to update every second, not smoothly as it used to. Clearly visible on the abilitiy cooldowns, as the background doesn't scroll smoothly round, it jumps.