A less-practical example would require editing an existing AJAX request.
Consider the edit service page in the admin UI. This page makes an AJAX request to display the totals in a box.
If the GET parameters for this request do not include both a valid client and service ID, or the service does not match the client, a 401 response is encountered.
Currently, a 401 response will cause the edit-service page to refresh continuously because it will continuously make the same invalid AJAX request.
If a 401 response did not perform a redirect, the UI would not be updated to include the totals box.
On a side note, the JS also performs an identical redirect for status code 406.
Appears to be related to the fact that the event is triggered on all requests, for that particular use case (attempting to load a URL that can't be accessed in maintenance mode).
Maybe maintenance mode should disable all events? What else do we disable in maintenance mode, or not disable in maintenance mode that should be disabled?