Okay-that I've seen. Incidentally I've also seen it on planets, when I start building multiple upgrades of the same type. It'll still show, say, 5 tactical slots, even though I've queued the upgrades to 25, and I can't "see" that I'm going from 25 to 35 (shows 5 to 35 if memory serves) but I know it.
I was under the impression the issue was that when an ability had not yet been purchased/queued he was only seeing the second level of the ability's description, which would be very strange indeed.
This would seem to be an issue moreso with things being in the progress of upgrading than a description problem. The reason why we wouldn't see it with capital ships is because their ability "upgrades" are instantaneous-all they need to do is level up.