Apache reload - configs not loaded

Question

I've searched around for a solution but there is not much information to find about the usage of reload with apache. Here is my problem:

Here at work we have a control panel for our non-technical employees which gives them the ability to grant access by IP to specific sub-domains on the server. Each sub-domain has its own virtualhost within one config file called "customers.conf". The "customers.conf" file is rebuilt, checked to make sure it's valid, and then apache is issued the "reload" command for the changes to take effect. I understand "reload" is nothing but a graceful restart, but I still expect the newly added IP address to be granted access by now. Unfortunately, this does not work. The only way I can get this to work is by issuing a "restart" rather than a "reload".

Can someone point to the right direction or explain to me why this isn't working as expected?

This is how we are enforcing IP only access in the virtualhost:

 <Directory />
    AllowOverride All
    Options FollowSymLinks
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from 0.0.0.0
 </Directory>

Thanks!