Yes, it takes some time... Especially if you have several servers! But it worked for me in the past more than once... Now for me a best practice is always to download first and publish later.
If you want to do an extra step, you can also delete the package from "Software Publishing" and force a synchronization. I only had this issue once but in that case deleting the published package on WSUS server did the trick. The downsize was to have to wait twice for the WSUS replication...
How many WSUS servers do you have?