Absolutely agree - it should be a full action and the distance needs to be further reduced (to max of 5 foot, in the right conditions)
I started talking to Nere and when I made him angry and combat started, I lost initiative badly (thank you RNG) and 2 of my party members where shoved into lava, before they could act, and died. Really....and we weren't standing right next to the lava either. The third was shot with some arrow 'pushing' attack and also ended up in the lava - all in round one ;-)
Sure, you can work around it, but the AI simply won't avoid it - it's too convenient.
