It doesn't mean any of that necessarily, Seraphita. Your 2nd and 3rd sentence assume a little too much. Clarity could be given if you used "the" or "a" before "THx status" in your 1st sentence ("a" would have been more accurate).
This is actually a surprisingly good discussion compared to TH topics I've seen on other forums. I think that's saying a lot.
Same as I've said elsewhere, be very careful what you assume/derive from the facts. The facts being the SE commentaries given to us a couple of fanfests ago.
It's also important to note that the Devs aren't gods who can phrase things perfectly every time, nor have the time to be so careful and concise with their words during a live interview. And also don't forget that these are translated from Japanese, and not ver batim.
Nonetheless, I agree it's enough to say that we know:
*Must have produced enmity on the mob for TH to be active
*Must have performed an action
on the mob for TH to be active
*In instances of multiple TH, the highest level of TH is the one that is active (in their words, 'party'; in my testing, ~verified to be 'alliance')
*If the player dies, the effect remains
*No effect on coffers
There are more useful bits and pieces from these interviews, but these above statements are some of the most important and non-vague.
Let's be careful and not assume too much beyond this. I agree that it's likely that killing the mob in TH2 after proccing TH4 is fine, but we don't have the knowledge to substantiate it--only assumptions. Let's also not make assumptions on zoning based on the death commentary. It seems very likely that TH will remain based on this, and also likely that the "TH is an additional effect" model is accurate. But we don't have access to the game code. If the programmers wanted to, they could have it that TH stays on after you die, but not if you zone, even if dying clears hate while zoning doesn't completely. They
could do that. Not saying it's likely, but the very fact that we can't say they couldn't, since we don't have the actual game code in front of us, means it's foolish to assume more than is necessary.
So I'm careful. But as long as there's at least one thief in the alliance, in the zone, with TH4 equipped (and their last enmity-producing action was done while TH4 was equipped **edit: read what Tarowyn said two posts above mine), whether dead or alive, I'm happy. Even being skeptical as I am, the above is rather easy to accomplish and fairly reasonable.