Yeah - some of my plug and flake tobaccos are impossible to keep lit! Especially if you abandon your pipe for a while be it walking away from it or simply daydreaming and forgetting to take a pull lol. The plugs I find myself relighting the most. I am getting pretty good at keeping ready rubbed or ribbon cuts burning throughout the bowl. Just leaving the pipe in my mouth and the little bit of air being pushed into the pipe as I normally exhale (I breath in via my nose with pipe in mouth lol) seems to keep it burning.
Either way - like Chris states, relighting isn't a problem, or a concern.
That was another thing I forgot about mentioning though. What I absolutely love about a pipe is, though I might budget an hour or whatever to smoke a larger bowl, I never feel like I am trapped smoking it like I do a larger stick. If something pulls me away and I let it go out while I attend to it - I come back and relight. Not a problem. Not $10.00 blown either lol.
Now don't get me wrong, I still love my cigars and taking the time to smoke them, but having a young family, I am sure you can see why the ability to abandon your smoke for a period of time can be advantageous lol.
Anyway - maintaining. Yeah, not much too it. But every now and again I will clean it out with an overproof alcohol I got at the liquor store. The guy in the video says you should do it every 4 or 5 smokes. I try to be vigilant, but I can never remember how many smokes I have put into a pipe lol. I need a way to track that lol.
http://www.cigarsinternational.com/cigar-101/article/43/maintaining-your-pipe