Combat Log inconsistencies

Ok, it looks like 4.0 and the change to the GCD checks have added some more special effects in the combat log.... you can now have an AURA_APPLIED for Rake which occurs before the SPELL_DAMAGE of the Rake which actually applied the aura.  This messes up my processing, as I always relied on SPELL_DAMAGE to perform error checking on aura refreshes, but since now it can arrive late, it ends up checking a refresh against the aura which was just applied.... so it will always report that the aura was refreshed too early.  Look:

• 10/18 22:52:16.843  SPELL_CAST_SUCCESS,.....
• 10/18 22:52:17.171  SPELL_AURA_APPLIED,.....
• 10/18 22:52:17.343  SPELL_DAMAGE,.....

This is incredibly annoying, because it means that I have to add a separate event for the aura application/refresh (as I do for Rip), which will often end up superposed with Rake's initial damage.
What is weird is that in the combatlog I'm using for debugging this only happens on some bosses and not on others.  From the same log:

• 10/18 22:17:16.031  SPELL_CAST_SUCCESS,.....
• 10/18 22:17:16.265  SPELL_DAMAGE,.....
• 10/18 22:17:16.265  SPELL_AURA_APPLIED,.....

This is the behaviour I'm used to having.  I'll have to code some weird workaround for this crap......