Pulse has a trapdoor
/status still works. It just quietly hands you to /pulse instead of stopping there.
/stats was rejected for promising the wrong page. That name means a metrics dashboard, traffic charts, usage graphs, not are we up right now. Different job, different page, not even close.
/status had the opposite problem, it is exactly the right job, just the boring, expected word for it. Someone mid-incident does not want to remember a brand name, they want to type the obvious path and get an answer. So /status stays. It just redirects straight into /pulse. Whoever lands there gets the branded page anyway, without ever having to know the branded name existed first.
The safety net and the brand, not a pick between them
Most naming decisions on this API are a straight either/or. This one was not. /status did not lose, it became the door. /pulse is what is on the other side of it.
Try it
Type /status. See where you end up.