Erratic action behaviour when choosing actions from a non-contact pane from advanced search

I have discovered that if I do an advanced search & specify to render it as a contribution / membership view the action behaviour is erratic.

For example, I select name as my only criteria. I get a message saying that there is a problem searching for contributions without leaving the contribution pane open. However, despite the message I can search for contributions from advanced search using contact criteria. (fortunately as this is important functionality)

My search returned 75 contacts but when I go to 'batch update via profile' and select 'All 75 contacts' - it tells me I cannot update more than 100 contacts .If I select specific contacts it appears to work

The behaviour on 4.3 demo is easier to replicate (& probably has the same underlying cause). If I search from advanced search on demo & choose to display as memberships i get 36 responses. If I choose to delete 'all 36 records' it appears to delete them but in fact none are deleted. It appears that $this->_memberIds is correctly populated when you select specific contacts - but not when you choose 'all'