Comment 27 for bug 200868

"Rationale: nvidia-settings doesn't have to be launched as root as it saves the user's settings to ~/.nvidia-settings-rc (so as to have per user settings)."

It may save some of the settings there, but not all. Try setting up dual monitors without modifying xorg.conf.

And I still haven't seen any "rationale" that would make my last suggestion invalid. A script would not have to be written by Nvidia and it would give the user the option of running with or without superuser mode. Unless, of course, you think people shouldn't be given sudo privileges on their own computers.