Hi:
A little help here … i hope this be useful.
“development mode” (that you can activate on site_config.json or with bench set-config developer_mode 1) is a state of “framework” like “design mode”. Is not related to environment.
Production mode (that you set with bench setup production youruser) is related to environment: uses fail2ban, nginx, etc … . You can deactivate production mode with bench disable-production.
Your bench in “non-production mode” only works with “bench start” command, that runs werkzeug server, etc … By the way, you can’t “bench stop” except Ctrl+C on terminal or killing some procceses (there are a script somewhere that helps …)
Production mode and development mode are not antagonist terms … in fact, you can set development mode in both production and non-production mode.
I think this is the confussion here … another “semantic” matter.
Sorry if I missunderstanding something . And sorry, i am not an expert, just 1 year digging here, and my english is not really fluent neither.