Mail format weirdness

I created a contact in Outlook 2002 SP2, specified that it should be sent in plain text only (by right-clicking on the email address and choosing Send Options or Properties and specifying plain text).

However, when I right click on the contact and select New Message to Contact, it defaults to Rich Text. What am I missing here? The overall message format is specified as Rich Text under Tools, Options, Mail format. But why allow the setting on an individual basis if it doesn’t change anything?