I think there is more to it than this. I tried setting the menu setting to Pro and then fired-up my CFM (set to All Madden) - it played almost like a Pro set with a faster kick meter. I could really tell because I was using my AM IG slider (57) with it and the QB performance was way too low for the set (note that I use 67 for my Pro set).
It's almost like what is happening is that you are playing on your main menu difficulty with a faster kick meter and whatever sliders you have loaded.
Can we exploit this? That is the question I have now....