importing preference changes

[Philipp Gühring]

Hi,

I imported a DSA-1024-160 testkey into GnuPG, and got the following message:

gpg --homedir work/696/ --import work/696/request.key
 Set preference list to:
      Cipher: AES256, AES192, AES, CAST5, 3DES
      Digest: SHA1, SHA256, RIPEMD160
      Compression: ZLIB, BZIP2, ZIP, Uncompressed
      Features: MDC, Keyserver no-modify
 Really update the preferences? (y/N)          

I am a bit puzzled that importing a key makes gnupg ask me, whether I want to 
update my preferences ...
I have the feeling that this could be a security risk, if it changed the 
preferences in an insecure way ...

Why doesn´t it show the previous settings, so that I know what it actually 
changes?

Best regards,
Philipp Gühring