Settings that don't appear until there are enough users/nodes

Is there any particular reason settings at admin/cre/* don't show up until there are enough nodes/users/whatever for CRE to consider? It's kind of irritating to not be able to configure settings during the development process. In particular I'm thinking about User Recommendations.

Do I need to pay attention to this? That is, if I drop it off my to-do list (it's the second-to-last item) will I regret it later when the default settings aren't what I'd like?

Actually, looking at the code, does that message just appear because there literally aren't any settings in that module (yet)?