I have a Prod and a Dev server, my dev server switching works fine between default and admin in revive, on my prod server this requires a page refresh like the OP to force the user account change.
The difference between the two servers is mod_expires (apache module) is configured on the production server to help with client caching, i think this is the primary candidate to start looking at to see if its interfering with the revive pages.
I'll be updating my sight in the next few days so will comment out the suspected mod and see if revive behaves properly.
The other difference between the servers is prod is running mod_deflate to compress content on the fly.