You're absolutely right. A setting of at least 80 to 100 (my pref is 135 to 150) is best suited for portraits. That "bottlenose dolphin" look as you call it is what's known as apparent wide angle distortion where objects close to the camera appear abnormaly large.

Example: - With a wide angle lens (short focal), you have to be pretty close to fill the picture with just the head. The nose might be 4" away and the ears will be  4" further, or 8" away. That's twice as far. So of course the nose will appear abnormaly large. Where as with a large focal setting, you have to back away to fill the frame with just the head. The nose might be 50" away and the ears still only 4" further, or 54" away. That's not much of a difference so the nose and ears will appear the correct size in relation to each other.

I hope this makes sense to you...