Use sitewide long/med/short date format for 'Start' and 'End' times when viewing event nodes

When viewing an event node, I can't seem to find a way to change the formatting of how the Start and End times are displayed. It seems to me that a good solution would be to use the sitewite short, medium, or long date formats, as chosen by the user in the site settings. Some date formats are much easier to read quickly than others.

The way of implementing this could be very simple: just replace the current 'Time notation preference' which only allows switching between 12 and 24 hr time with a field that lets the administrator select the date format they wish to use when displaying event nodes (short, medium, or long) and add a link to the Date settings section of the sitewide settings page along with a note explaining that they can specify what the short, medium, and long date formats look like on this page.

Or, if there is some reason that the 12hr/24hr thing has to stay, just keep it there and also add this new field.

I'd be willing to give a stab at writing a patch to allow this, but wanted to get some feedback. Perhaps there is some reason this has not been done in the past?

Cheers,
Ben