The "ability to import settings from existing images of same model of radio" should be the new functionality here. I think Tom mentioned this and I vote for this approach.
To prevent copying unwanted data hiding in unused fields, I'm assuming the only settings that will get imported/export are those that have defined setting interfaces. Additionally, I'm guessing you might want to have the changes go through the setting interface so any error checking will fire. So really I'm just suggesting (or hoping for) functionality that walks the known settings and can dump them in some sort of textual representation that can be examined outside of the chirp gui.
Robert, that's my idea ... you surely described it better than me. I'll implement export/import first and only after, if we still see the need, i'll make the direct import from images.
I forget to tell it before but, please, "chirp people" accept my best wishes for the upcoming new year.
73 de IZ3GME Marco