SharePoint Access Request Ignoring Default Group

Has anyone noticed that the new release of functionality for Access Requests (where you can now pick the site Owners group to receive the email requests - excellent!) does not add the users to your site's default group anymore.

Instead it adds the user directly to the site, not in any group.

Im not sure how I feel about this - its a bit scary to think the idea is we have lots of users having permissions set directly.

Is this expected behaviour? If so, what do you guys think about this - is this what you want?

Thanks

Nigel