If they have actually implementing a "drawback" for using the Friends spell that's good... But going straight into attack mode instead of taking just a significant hit in "likeability" seems a bit of a stretch.
Then again Kagha didn't exactly starte in the best terms with our party, so maybe it's that rather than "When friends expires people will attack you no matter what".
I believe this only aply to Kagha ...
I used Friends on Astarion, and all i get was "disagree" when it expired ...
I used Friends on some vendor NPC, not sure wich one it was, but i have the feeling it was Druid from Grove ... and when it expired he come to me and acused me from beaking the law ... so i talked out of the situation (NOT using Friends again, but i wonder if it would incerase dificiulty) and all was good.
I didnt used it to Kagha myself, yet ... so not sure if that was the problem, but certainly sound like it.