I believe there is a need for the ability to know if a server is
compliant to KMIP for the type of key exchange needed.
If my client needs to interact for symmetric keys, I need to know the
server is KMIP compliant for symmetric key functions. So, from a
conformance clause, there needs to be a way to indicate what constitutes
the minimum set of functions the server must support in order to make
the claim of "conformant".
Likewise, we need a profile for asymmetric key conformance. So those
clients needing an asymmetric key server know if it is compliant.
There may be other subsets that make sense as a minimum conformance
profile.
The ability for a server to claim conformance for the superset is always
available. And, the server implementation could claim conformance for
each of the minimum profiles if it had each.