I totally aggree on that, however this was a design decision: SVN tried to keep a clean concept in its initial design.
- Import moves data into repository
- Checkout creates a working copy
- Update updates a working copy
- Commit send changes from working copy to repository
These 4 basic operations are strictly separated by information flow: From repository or To repository
I ran into exact this difficulty on several trainings, therefore I developed a different approach: I never use import, i alway check out the empty (parent-)folder and copy all stuff into the working copy. This also let me preview the result by examining svn status before committing and it means for training attendees 1 commando less to remember.
If you are experienecd enough, you could also checkout the empty folder directly into your to-be-imported directory and add all files afterwards. SVN does not like to check out into a prefilled directory, but you can use --force to persuade svn to try it.