Yeah it's a bit frustrating isn't it. I often import a few hundred images from a walk or something and sync them to a gpx track. I don't want to go through each photo and commit all the location info. Sometimes I want it to stay there but I might amend the sublocation, of course if I touch that the rest is deleted.
I have found that the metadata is still searchable even if it isn't committed, and it is exported too. I'd be interested to know if there is any easy way to commit it!