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Suppose I am hidden or invisible when suddenly my party gets ambushed. I survive the surprise round and the first few actions of the first round undetected. If I now attack an enemy (who has already acted in this combat), is he flatfooted to me? Or just denied his Dex bonus?
The distinction is important, because I might soon be playtesting my Vivisectionist with the sap feat tree. With a Ring of Invisibility, he has good chances of going undetected even if ambushed.
He's just denied his dex bonus, not flat-footed, AFAIK.
A character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed...
Because the party in question has acted (assuming they all have; any that have not acted would still be flat-footed of course), then they would simply be denied their DEX bonus.
I've never seen a rule that says that adventurers 'walking prepared' does anything, and likely for good reason -- Do ANY of you know a player who willfully describes not paying attention? :) But in a more specific sense, being 'aware' really means little other than that you're trying to cover a 360 degree sphere of potential threats. Once one of them actually materializes as a REAL threat, then all your focus and reactions need to be in concert with that threat - ie, you were so busy 'being aware' that your full attention isn't on what's going on yet, or your speed isn't up to snuff yet (you lost initiative).
Edit: It is always possible of course that the adventurers have some way of peering around corners or whatnot and can take the enemy flatfooted (say, beyond an open archway or something). This would be an example of entering a room 'combat-ready'. But otherwise, it sounds like they're trying to just move in slowly or defensively, still not knowing if a threat is there. I'd make it an adjudication call, based on an EXACT description of exactly what 'combat ready' means to them. But RAW...there's nothing I know of right offhand. Granted, I'm still relatively new to PF in particular, so I may have missed something.