Question: Why is there seemingly inconsistent behavior with same expression?

Hello,

All too often I encounter an annoying issue, and when it happens it makes Maple slower than just scribbling on paper.  Unfortunately I don't understand why it happens or when it is going to happen so it creates a huge waste of time.

While most of the time expressions behave as expected, other times the exact same expression behaves as if it is something other than what is shown on screen.  I just ran into such an issue as an example:

What am I missing here? Why would phi not be interpreted as phi?

The only thing I could think of not being a Maple expert is assumptions.  I found I have an assumption earlier on phi (assume(phi>0,phi<45) so I removed it, but inexplicably(to me) that only fixes the first 2 lines, the last 2 lines still have the same issue, why I can't understand.  Why would having an assumption on phi, prevent me from evaluating the expression at some value of phi? The provided value is even within the assumed range.  And in either case, why can't I declare a value for phi and have that be understood?

Sorry for what I suspect is a dumb question, and thanks in advance.

EDITED to correct = -> :=