Yes; apparently, from looking at the code, that is the intended behavior of the View link on homenodes.

The viewmode parameter is "sticky"; that is, if passed, it gets remembered in a $VARS entry. Unlike the other three links, the View link on the homenode does not attempt to set this parameter, so the remembered value is used.

There does appear to be some support in place for a non-sticky variant (the showmode parameter); but currently, the homenode links do not use it.