Maybe not the most important thing, but it is a bit annoying and highly confusing for a newcomer to have to join a game before one can even set what nick to use and it has caused fake lag issues and made the game look worse by not having it on the highest setings.
It probably was forgot since once the config is set only minor changes to it are usualy made and you usualy do those ingame, but it is still important for a new player. I don't know if you have played ET but they have a nice easy introduktion config screen the first time you start the game, it asks you for name, choose a standard graphic seting like low, high, verry high etc, mouse sensetivity and network seting.
