USB device: "Safely Remove" not safe; not sync'ed?

[Rich Lott]

Hi

Edgy has a Safely Remove action in the context menu for removable usb media.

However I've noticed that if I copy a large amount of data onto a usb1 device, 
choose Safely Remove immediately, then the icon disappears, the device says 
disconnected, yet the files are not copied and no error/information comes up.

I'm worried about what state this leaves the file system in, is it dangerous? 
Is this a bug?

Also, is there a way to call sync before indicating that a device is safe to 
remove? I don't want to have to mount the device(s) with the sync option 
because this gets v. slow to work with on a usb1 device.

thanks,

rich.