Order Status in Order and Order History. Same or Different?

Under Sales>>Orders, for each order, you can choose to VIEW or EDIT. Under VIEW, on the Order History tab, you can add history entries with different statuses. But if you had click under EDIT, on the Totals tab, you can modify the order status as well. What's the diffence? If I modify it under the Totals tab, it doesn't affect the Order History tab. But If I add a new entry to the Order History, it also shows that new status on the Totals tab.

Is the order_status_id under the Totals tab even necessary? Perhaps it was a legacy field that was left over and perhaps should be remove if it's unnecessary.

Side Note: The values are store under order_status_id in the oc_order and oc_order_history tables.

If you alter an order by pressing EDIT (which means say that you add a product to that order) it will affect the overall total but you won't see it in the order history. I agree, it should be reflected in the order history because technically you are altering an "order."