It's not an attempt to steer behavior but rather intended as helpful advice. There are certainly cases of organizations disseminating "helpful advice" with the underhanded intent of steering behavior but that doesn't mean we should assume bad faith by default.
The advice is actionable because it is a concrete change that could be made. I believe it to be relevant to the context because someone in a position of authority who is badgered into accepting something would most likely benefit from reevaluating how he is interacting with the general public.
I have a feeling the thing triggering this guy is the responsibility of "the security of all our computers depends on maintainers".
A lot of people don't want to be responsible for that. It's not fun to carry that weight.