I dont understand why not just cancel it and call it a regional for now?
Because then it would be another service that's been canceled during the Pandemic. I think Amtrak has managed to nominally keep most of its services active, but, as we know, many of the daily long-distance trains got dropped to tri-weekly, and plenty of other services have been curtailed. At one point, the Adirondack was short-turning at Albany -- basically just turning it into another Empire Service run. But, like the Vermonter, by keeping it in service they can avoid clickbaity news stories about "upstate rail service CANCELED".