If a page is edited while it is within the activation workflow, the edits will be reflected on the authoring system, but the (default implementation of the) activation workflow will publish the original version of the page, regardless of the edits.

The problem is that the status indication for the page will change to "green" when the activation workflow completes, even though the version published is not the most recent one.

So this creates a situation where the page is marked as green on the authoring system, even though it is not the same version as on the live system.