Communication Limit defaults are ignored - Is this expected behavior?

I just commented in a related idea here: https://nation.marketo.com/ideas/7334#comment-23976 - but wanted to make a new one, as those screenshots are gone and the thread is old. This is baffling to me and wanted to open it up to comments from the nation.

Question: In the Admin area, what is the expected behavior of the Communication Limits checkbox "Default behavior if a lead is over communication limits"? How is this supposed to be used?

Explanation: We temporarily set our admin email rules to ignore communication limits because we had an important companywide email going out. However, the settings on the program were set to override that setting by default. Our associate missed that and a bunch of people therefore did not get the email.

To clarify:

1. In admin, under "Default behavior if a lead is over communication limits", Uncheck "Block non-operational emails". What I would now expect is that any non-operational email would be delivered to all recipients regardless of communication limits. In essence, this is a systemwide setting that determines whether or not we are using communication limits.

2. Create a new non-operational email program. The email will be set by default to block the email for recipients who have reached their communication limits. This is in direct conflict with the systemwide administrative setting.

What is the purpose of a systemwide default if it is not actually setting the default for anything? What am I missing here?