It turned out that the original design was to carry page numbers over to the new pub, but it wasn't working due to a bug. The bug was fixed in r2009-75 and the page numbers should always be carried over now. If the ability to select whether they should copied at import/export time turns out to be desirable, we can add it via a separate Feature Request.
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
It turned out that the original design was to carry page numbers over to the new pub, but it wasn't working due to a bug. The bug was fixed in r2009-75 and the page numbers should always be carried over now. If the ability to select whether they should copied at import/export time turns out to be desirable, we can add it via a separate Feature Request.