Your examples make the point, though - does heckling a performer and throwing a tomato at them count as "encounter mode"?I think that depends on what causes that encounter mode. It should be fine if the wizard could say "my spell will end if you attack something, so don't go throwing tomatoes when the bard cracks a joke about joining the mile high club, like we know he will." Or something lke that for each instance that initiates encounter mode.
Regardless of that, I do think it's weird that getting attacked ends a spell lke wind walking. Especially since I just pictured a flock of fiendish seagulls smirking as they watch an adventuring party lift off the ground. One seagull says to another, "We wait until they're way up there, then bomb them with our poop."
And for clarity (and with a shoutout to [MENTION=82504]Garthanos[/MENTION]), I've got nothing against RPG mechanics that are based around scenes, including different sorts of scenes - I GM MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic, which uses a contrast between action scenes and transition scenes to manage the progression of ingame events.
But (1) the fact that I don't mind those mechanics doesn't stop them being metagame, and (2) you don't see anything in Cortex+ Heroic, or even (that I recall) in 4e as weird as PF2 Wind Walk:
When you cast this spell, all targets transform into a vaguely cloud-like form and are picked up by a wind moving in the direction of your choice. You can Concentrate on the Spell to change the wind’s direction. The wind carries the targets at a Speed of 20 miles per hour, but if any of the targets make an attack, Cast a Spell, come under attack, or otherwise enter encounter mode, the spell ends for all targets and they drift gently to the ground.
The targets must be ingame entities, because they are picked up by a wind, and that's clearly not happening in the real world. It follows, therefore, from if any of the targets . . . otherwise enter encounter mode that "entering encounter mode" is something that happens to ingame entities!
Or rather, it follows that the rules are written in a way that runs together the fiction and the mechanics in some weird fashion that doesn't really appeal to me, and surely won't appeal to those who get anxious about "dissociated" mechanics.