vsftp is reporting times as GMT

It has baffled me for days that my ftp (vsftp) server shows
file timestamps in the wrong timezone: UTC
After some searching I found that there is a hidden option
for setting it.
(it isn't in the default config file /etc/vsftpd.conf)

Q) Help! vsftpd is reporting times as GMT times and not local times!
A) This behaviour can be changed with the setting "use_localtime=YES

After adding that to the end of /etc/vsftpd.conf, and doing:
sudo /etc/init.d/vsftpd restart

it works now!
Now why isn't this the default???
http://www.flux.org/pipermail/linux/2004-June/015484.html
http://vsftpd.beasts.org/vsftpd_conf.html

This got me thinking is it some sort of a standard that ftp servers return timestamps in utc?