I never had any glitches with draw() and its clip rect. It is by the way implemented very well and gives you an important performance boost if done correct. The Flash rasterizer will only draw the parts of the clipRect.
Regarding your code: I would actually try it with and without the matrix. This could be the problem. You translate and clip. Basically clipping should happen before translation but I am not quite sure about that one.
Joa Ebert
2009-12-10 22:48:59