Concerned with HIP sprints

During our planning I very often hear maintenance or architecture work come up and immediately be deferred with "that's a HIP sprint item."  Ultimately this feels like a cop out.  Granted that's not what the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is going for with it's advocation of them.  It seems more of a place for preparing for a release and dealing with those things that can't be done before hand.

Granted my company is mostly focused on updates to existing applications and adding features to them.  (That's not to say that new things are being developed, just that the number of brand new things is less than existing.)  So while we'll occasionally have those items it seems that should be some stories in your iteration instead of the focus of an entire iteration.  Though even if it took over an iteration - does it need a special name?

I guess it's making me think this is a situation that some teams have found themselves in where they need a HIP sprint and it's being generalized as a rule to help protect others.  In the end I feel it flies in the face of sustainable pace since it gives a dumping ground for things that should be done in each sprint.  Granted we're supposed to have a mix of these items in each sprint already, but it seems the HIP sprint provides the illusion of a crutch to fall back on.  (To be sure - there's some coaching that is needed to ensure that we're not too focused on product development with no regard for keeping the system working.) 

I'm certainly giving short shrift to a topic that has had some thoughtful discussion, but it's something that's currently on my mind.