The documentation for the string methods split and
rsplit do not address the case where sep=None and
maxsplit=0.

Should this strip off the leading and trailing
whitespace, but not do any splits? Should it simply
return the invocant string?

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From the documentation of split()

"If maxsplit is given, splits at no more than maxsplit
places (resulting in at most maxsplit+1 words)."

I know that at the moment rsplit() and split() remove any
leading whitespace but leave trailing space intact, but I
would have thought leaving the string entirely intact would
make more sense. Surely, to comply with the statement
'resulting in at most maxsplit+1 words)' the entire string
should be returned when maxsplit=0.

I can see the point that the leading whitespace isn't
actually returned but i don't see why it should be discarded.

Just a thought.

The docs for split() and rsplit() have reached their limits of complexity.  Let the corner cases be defined by what the implementation currently does.  IMO, any more attempts to expand these docs can only result in a decrease in clarity and usability.  What is there now does a good job at showing you what you need to know to use the methods effectively.