Agreed. I notice it primarily when donating to TCs in wars, in part because of the in game chat problems. When friends "request allies" the bar in chat can be 0/0, 0/30, 0/14.... and sometimes when I click it says already full even though it appears empty, etc.
It's easier for me to see the number change in the war donations: donate a howie, see it say 9 then 8 slots filled. Are you seeing it with regular alliance requests (vs war TC)?
In any case, it seems to me that this was in one of the long lists of fixes/changes in one of the announcements. Can't find it right now - I'm having issues searching the forum and I couldn't quickly find it in the announcements section.