Asset Management - Asset Profile Set-up, significance of Category?

PeopleSoft FIN General Ledger v 9.2

Setting up new Asset Profiles, category is a required field and if left blank upon Save attempt error is given:

Category is required for financial assets. (8025,35)

For financial assets, you must specify an asset category code on all the books.

Wondering what is the purpose of the Category requirement for Asset Profile set-up? As seems like all account generation is done within the Category + Accounting Template setup.

What we want is just a few asset profiles e.g. profile = MONTH36 for an asset with 36-month lifespan that can be used for any asset with a 36 month-lifespan regardless of category.