I hope you didn't get the skill with the assumption that it would work as you've described, because this issue has been known for years. You could've easily found out about it by reading the irowiki article or the countless posts about it on this forum.
But yes, they should either return this skill to its former glory or give it a different kind of bonus/duration/cooldown/etc. And while they're at it, they might want to reevaluate some of Lif's other skills, like Urgent Escape. The skill becomes pretty useless once you get Cart Boost.
To be honest, don't expect this skill to be fixed anytime soon (if ever). In my experience, the CMs/GMs rarely bother to reply to bug reports (at least on the forums), in which case there's no way of knowing if they've passed it on to the development team. Furthermore, the development team seems to focus more on releasing new content (in some cases, requiring very little programming work) than resolving long-standing bugs. And seeing how this skill and other homunculus skills have remained untouched since the renewal update, it is better to keep your expectations low.
It feels as if the game is being maintained by a skeleton crew of programmers, barely keeping this game alive. Of course this is based on speculation, but that's how it feels to most players accustomed to the very slow progress of resolving even the largest gameplay disrupting bugs (Quest timer bug, Blind status effect bug, etc.).
In conclusion, if the brokenness of this skill is a deal breaker for you, you might want to choose a different homunculus.
Edited by ShiveringShadows, 21 December 2013 - 05:44 AM.