If an "Officer's ACP" sized pistol is built right, they can be quite reliable. The issue that generates reliability issue in the smaller 1911's is about 50% shooter and 50% gun.
If you open the slide on a full sized 1911 and lock it back, you'll see that the breech face goes well behind the magazine well. With a 3.5" the breech face goes slightly behind, like 1/8"(ish).
Now you add in the shortened grip and the recoil of a .45 ACP and the gun does have more muzzle flip than most 1911's unless you hold tightly with what fingers you can get on the gun. So the muzzle flip will actually soak up quite a bit of energy from the slide and can have the effect of what most call a "limp wrist" type malfunction.
So the shorter slide travel and the pronounced muzzle flip can make the pistol more prone to malfunction than the full sized pistols, but that can be alleviated by just learning how to properly hold the pistol.
But understand, the sub-compact pistols from other makers are subject to the same issues; this isn't a "1911" problem.
