Save Format options confusing

Save the current folder format: Save------

Why doesn't the options have one simply to save the format ?

All the options provided are made much more confusing by the lack of a simple "save"

If you want to edit a format that's already been saved, and that doesn't apply to a particular folder, do it via Preferences / Folders / Folder Formats.

The problem with that solution is that it does not seem to pick up the interactive changes one makes to the format using the lister - unless I am missing something.
It seems one must specifically redefine the details of the format within the management

The issue there is that the current format for any given tab/folder may be derived from multiple formats (since they can change some details and delegate others to less specific formats, content type formats, and so on), so there isn't necessarily a single format to update, and saving what's in the tab may copy details from one format into another.

So if you want to edit an existing format, the only real way to do it is via Preferences.