Yes, its definitely misleading. I take it all with a grain of salt and just experiment LOL. I am in zone 9A, but I am in a hot zone 9A. We do have the occasional freeze. This past winter, we had only ONE freeze. Yet San Francisco is in zone 10. They may rarely freeze, but, they don't get warm enough overall to grow a lot of tropical plants. Their nightly lows are great, but, their daily highs just are not hot enough. So my zone 9A is actually better for some kinds of plants than their zone 10 would be.
I am a zone pusher. I always have a few extra plants hanging around, and I have no compunction about planting them out in the yard, even if 'they' say that they won't make it, because usually, a few actually DO make it, and make it long term
I think every person you ask might interpret the meaning of the climate min.max and climate zones differently.
