[InvaderFizz]

I would guess that people see "maintenance mode" and think that means it's pretty much EoL and will no longer receive security patches in the near future.

That is certainly the mental model I have for something in maintenance mode.

[Bjartr]

To me the whole point of saying "maintenance mode" is to tell people to only expect things like necessary security patches and critical bug fixes instead of new features. If those things aren't happening, then there isn't any maintenance going on.