Question: What does assume n=7 mean?

The question in the title has been raised before over the years, but has maybe not received enough attention.
Reraising the question was motivated by a comment by Kitonum to a recent post on improved integration results in Maple 2016:
http://mapleprimes.com/maplesoftblog/202910-New-And-Improved-Integration-Results

Consider the following session.
restart;
assume(n=0);
n^2; #Returns n^2
eval(%);#Returns n^2
sin(n*Pi); # Returns 0
sin(n); # Returns sin(n)
eval(%); # Returns sin(n)
ln(n); #Returns ln(n)
ln(n*exp(1)); # Returns ln(n*exp(1))
expand(%); # Error, (in ln) numeric exception: division by zero
ln((n+1)*exp(1)); Returns ln((n+1)*exp(1))
expand(%); # Returns ln(n+1)+1
sqrt(n^2); # Returns 0
sqrt(n); # Returns n^(1/2)
eval(%,n=n^2); # Returns (n^2)^(1/2)
simplify(%); #Returns 0: simplify doesn't help in the examples above.
##################
We see that assume n=0 certainly doesn't imply that expressions always will be evaluated at n=0, but sometimes it appears that it does.
So what is the intended behavior when assuming equality?
##
Several years ago (Maple 14 or earlier) I overloaded assuming so that equality assumptions were handled by eval.
There was a discussion at the time in MaplePrimes about this. Shall try to find the link.