If I inadvertently punched in 1035, wouldn't there be a 300' delta between the altitude I've reported and the QNH adjusted output of my transponder on the ATC screen? Alarms going off?
And if the justification is, in effect, "just to cover our arse", don't be surprised or criticise when pilots readback everything, just to get arse-covering confirmation that they've copied everything you've said..