When NOT clicking "Only this folder" ends up resetting view mode options for ALL folders, it makes no sense to have this being the DEFAULT action when utilizing the "view mode" dialogue. As a comparison, look at how this is handled in WIndows ... one has to EXPLICITLY tell Windows to apply viewing preferences to a specific folder or group of folders (granted that Windows makes this a clunky thing to do).

Beyond this, a second checkbox for "apply to child folders" would make this a far more powerful feature -- since I find myself having to do this very thing by hand.