Oh, and specifically regarding this:

> Seems strange to have the different types of paths with their default tags if the default tags aren't applied!

You'll notice that selecting "Footpath" as the feature type, for example, DOES apply some extra tags, and those will be shown in black rather than grayed out. Selecting "Path" just sets "highway=path", and you need to "roll your own" additional tags.

If you want to see the "red pill" list of tags actually being applied, you can expand the Tags section near the bottom of the sidebar. There's also a button to switch the list to a plain text field, which is useful if you ever need to copy'n'paste everything from one feature to another (be careful with that, though!)