Appreciate this feedback, and feel you on it... but we're not going to change this. The reasoning here is that no matter the default we choose, if you neglect to set the settings purposely, there will be people who don't get the results they want. And it's our belief, based on years and years of supporting this thing, that 'adding people here again' would cause much more severe problems that the 'ignore' default.
Generally speaking, if you're going to mess things up you want to lean towards 'not doing things' vs 'doing a bunch of accidental stuff.' Currently, the worst case is 'nothing happens' but if we took your suggestion, an error might mean all sorts of emails going out the door, fields changed etc.
So, we're going to stick to the plan, but again.. totally feel you. There's not a perfect solution, I don't think.