Unfortunately, I have to assert the most likely explanation is observer bias. The game engine simply couldn't malfunction in the way you're describing, for the simple reason that the moment you activate TG it rolls its to hit roll and decides whether to hit or miss immediately. Anything that happens after that can't change that outcome. What you're saying you are observing, in game engine terms, is that TG is activated, the game engine decides whether the power hits or misses, but if it has already rolled a miss and the target dies, the game engine decides to change its mind and call it a hit.
Its possible for a power that hits to subsequently fail to apply its effect if something later interferes with the process, like the issue with pseudo-pets, or the game engine could malfunction and not apply those effects because of a bug. But its not possible for a power that misses to subsequently apply its effects anyway (technically, anything is possible with a software bug but this is vastly more unlikely than the reverse for the simple reason hit decisions can't be "appealed later" in the game engine).
I certainly understand your thought that it was observer bias and I'm willing to state that it might very well be that. That was what I thought for a fairly long time too. After all, Achmeds Raison would dictate it (it's not spellt that way?).
Like I said earlier, I first noticed this back in the bad ol' Dark Miasma days. I was in Perez Park doing street sweep with some friends bemoaning my healz lack of hitting ability and activation time. I would hit TG and it would tell me miss/hit and a teammate would spot my target, have tea, saunter up to him, engage in battle, defeat the bad guy and have a celebration in the time it would take for my TG to finish its animation (me exaggerate?).
My thought would have been is there such a thing as an instantaneous queue surrounding to hit rolls considering many times the damage comes after the fact? How would that affect to hit chances if any (probably not but a place to consider).
The other thought (which I considered more likely at the time) was that it was a mea culpa to the dark miasma defender for his crappy animation time. Sort of
If TG
then Look at state on mob
If state = yes //the baddie has been hit but damage not delivered
and damage > Health
then TG hit = yes //mea culpa you so so broken dark maismist.
Else
continue.
At the time (and mostly today) I had no real idea how coding was done for this or any other game around. I even had a thematic rationale for it. That the dark maismist was ripping the soul of the recently departed (never saw that in the power description though
).
LaughingAlex brought up a good thought too. It is possible that it was a unintended consequence of steakbreaker and I was just "feeling" the right time for advantage.