version assignment and module scope

[dcrepid via Digitalmars-d-learn]

I'm a bit baffled why using something like this doesn't get 
recognized by imported modules:

version = Unicode;

I use this to try and alter the way the win32 API headers resolve 
certain symbols, but currently the only way to force that version 
symbol to be recognized correctly is to define it on the compiler 
command-line.

Is there some alternative to doing this?  I thought this was one 
way to emulate the C "#define" type of conditional compilation, 
but it appears that anything outside of the current module is 
unaffected by version assignments like the above.

Could this be considered a defect of design? Thanks!