All locale_config does is write the chosen locale setting to /etc/sysconfig/i18n under string 'LANG'. One could argue locale is a lot more than just 'LANG'. Configuring locale settings (including, but not limited to LANG) should be much more flexible, perhaps being able to set other locale-settings too, coupled with descriptions what they actually do.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 56301 ***