Real world data:
All "operational state" are the same as "current hw state"
All the connections listed at POE-AT are from PPoE+ switches.
All the connections listed at POE-AF also say they have the usual restrictions.
This is across a plant of HP Procurve and Cisco af switches of various ages, also a PowerDSine af injector here and there. There
are definitely some APs patched directly to switches via a short patch cord in there as well, so I guess don't expect any of that 51V af behavior from most equipment, unless the output from that controller command is less than awesome.