The Content Type system lets you change folder formats if e.g. there are lots of images in the folder. It's described here:
https://www.gpsoft.com.au/help/opus12/index.html#!Documents/Content_Types.htm
That's probably what you want for this kind of thing, and avoids having to change every folder manually at all. You just turn it on and it's automatic, based on what's in the folder.
If you want to stick to explicit folder formats, not automated ones, you can make the initial setup a bit faster with a button or hotkey which saves the format for the current folder.
To save the current settings for the current folder (but not sub-folders), without showing any additional dialogs:
Set SAVEFORMAT=folder
Or, if you also want to update/replace the formats stored within Layouts, Tab Groups, etc. for the same path:
Set SAVEFORMAT=folder,replace
(If needed: How to use buttons and scripts from this forum)
Auto-saving formats is something we've been considering. It's not something that really made sense to us, since (once things are set up) it's common to make temporary changes to a folder that you don't want to be saved and have to undo the next time you visit it, and it also results in a huge mess of data (which then has to have a limit applied to it, so you end up losing formats if you visit too many folders, like in File Explorer, and also have a huge mess of formats to look at if you want to manage them explicitly, although File Explorer provides no UI for doing that). But other people seem to want it, so we aren't entirely against the idea, as an option.