i noticed this as well when i played on 1.05.  haven't checked it on 1.1 but i do recall it quite vividly on 1.05.  A certain amount of damage has to be done to unstun the ship.  In large battles this is good because it takes a ship out of combat while your ships focus on other active units but when i've disabled a retreating enemy cap ship by itself, my unit's wouldn't attack until the effect is cleared.  My units wouldn't attack while the effect was active even when ordered to.  A red attack line would appear but they wouldn't carry out the attack so i believe the OP may be correct.

Its best used for taking higher leveled capital ships out of the picture while you deal with other threats. Although this ability can deny the ability to phase jump, you would have to repeatedly cast Reverie to contain the target ship to prevent it from jumping, leaving your ships a window of about 2 seconds between each cast to damage the target ship (of course, this is lengthened considerably if a Phase Jump Inhibitor is used).

It can also be used in a last ditch effort to release ships from Distortion Field if you cast Reverie on the first Subverter to cast it, since only that one's effects are felt and all others on the same ships are null.

I started another game.  With the Reverie ability on the lowest level, its range is evidently small enough that LRFs can still shoot at the target.  At level 3, though it seems to knock anything that's within shooting range out of action.  Does this sound right?