btw if you're wondering why this might matter (perfectly valid question :) it's because Collins has support for triggers upon transitioning to particular status:state combinations. ie, if you set a node's Status to Maintenance and State to HARDWARE_PROBLEM, this will generate a JIRA ticket automatically, which is great.  

But I'm not positive this would still generate a JIRA ticket if you set the asset to Maintenance alone first (not specifying state, which means "leave state as-is"), and then set it again to Maintenance but now with state of HARDWARE_PROBLEM.  It might still work, but seems like it could be more brittle.  That's why I think it seems safer to set status and state together all in one shot, without potentially setting status alone first.