Have you tried an enclosure for the drive with its own dedicated power source?
Good question. The same behavior also happens with an externally powered Western Digital Spinning Disk USB3 HDD, I haven't ever found an externally powered NVMe enclosure but I had thought about that possibility. I should also note that the two external NVMe enclosures I have used don't see any interruption for the LEDs on the enclosure when the power state change happens and any other USB connected peripheral continues to operate without interruption further complicating this situation.