Apologies for the delay. This BZ and https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2015589 has been fixed as of 4.11:
1. The MCD no longer performs uncordons, and the new controller will always retry and has no issues with the pending config which can cause this.
2. The new controller should always be polling for the latest update, so this type of issue should generally not happen, minus API instability which we would otherwise have no control over
So I will be closing this once 4.11 ships. The rework which fixes this, however, is a pretty significant effort to backport. If we require this in earlier versions, we would likely need to apply another fix.
If you would like the corresponding fix backported, please state the reasoning and the version this needs backport to, and the team will prioritize accordingly. Otherwise this fix will be only in 4.11. Thank you.