I've never really dealt with brutal rush before, but reading the helpfile makes it appear as though it's more of a "defensive" skill, actually. If I had to guess, I'd say people are expecting results out of it that it's not designed to do. Two things I *DID* notice out of that fight though, that seem they could be due to brutal rush:

1) There's at least two rounds in that fight in which Atridi didn't get *ANY* attacks at all. Not parried, dodged, etc, he just never made an attack. The rest of the fight, he only seems to get maybe 1-2 attacks a round. For a warrior dual wielding, that's not much.

2) He only succeeded at one jab. Now, that could just be bad luck/skill, but jab IS a maneuver with a sword, so maybe that's being impeded as well.