It seems that GraphicsMagick suffers with the same problem as used to the ImageMagick codebase. On two places in yuv.c, there is:
if ((horizontal_factor != 1) && (horizontal_factor != 2) &&
(vertical_factor != 1) && (vertical_factor != 2))
ThrowYUVReaderException(OptionError,UnsupportedSamplingFactor,
image);
The condition is true only if both factors are wrong, which does not look to be intended.
This issue is addressed by Mercurial changeset 18005:85f3971e259d, which is included in the latest (1.4.020260306) source development snapshot.
Much thanks to Petr, who tried extra hard to communicate about this issue with me.