Assume this rule:
when: <something happens> AND rule H10 doesn't match, then: send me an email
If rule H10 is disabled, then rule H15 will fail to evaluate, never actually do anything, and there's no way to find that except by visiting a Transcript after you know something is wrong.
In my use-case (H7 -> H22), I expected it to interpret "disable rule" as "doesn't match", but I suspect there are other possible interpretations, depending on context.
In any case, having the referring rule silently fail is bad.