This may be just the expected side effect of how packaging/pip works. Nevertheless, it may be something worth at least documenting as users may run into surprises, too.
PR #11934 dropped the support for mpl 3.0.x, yet the tests for using version 3.0.3 happily run rather than raising an error or try to update.
https://app.circleci.com/pipelines/github/astropy/astropy/6851/workflows/22d51a94-314f-43f9-8f66-1732154800d2/jobs/92719