If next-match and apply-imports were not treated as  second class
citizens  they would have a mode parameter and the question wouldn't
 arise.

I'm struggling to guess what you would want a mode-parameter on
next-match to do.

next-match applies the template that would have matched had the current
template not been there. Necessarily this is in the same mode as
templates in other modes would not have matched at all as
apply-templates is always in some mode (or the unnamed default mode).

So if next-match had a mode parameter and any mode other than the
current mode were specified it would either have to be defined to do
nothing (no template matches) or work exactly like apply-templates
(match the highest priority template in that mode) neither functionality
seems particularly useful.