+1, its a pain to stay still for 3 seconds or so(when you have 0 ap) just to get a message: "Nice try but you failed." And naturally i dont even see the source why i cant sneak.
But imo you should be able to enter sneak while out of combat, even if seen. The concept of "cant sneak while beeing seen" is to prevent the hit&run abuse am i right? Well the combat window would pretty much prevent that. Like when there are 3 players: 2 combatants, and you, who only wants to get out of there. The 2 focus on each other, they dont even care about you, but you cant enter sneak. If the sneaker gets hit however, combat window opens which basically tells you that sneak time is over, fighting time is now. Combat prevents exiting the area, combat should prevent sneaking.