[jrochkind1]

I'm talking about fixing the external actual configuration that has diverged, to match what terraform config wants it to be.

However, snom380 says this is what terraform is intended to do, and does with properly implemented providers, which makes sense to me.

I'm not sure if you are talking about the same things. We -- me, snom380, and the original quote I made from OP -- are talking about what happens when external actually existing live resources have diverged from terraform's state. I understand what you said that under a "perfect" situation, this would not happen. But it does sometimes for various reasons, what the original quote from OP is talking about and what I'm talking about is what happens when it does. I think maybe you are talking about something else.