This isn't really about encapsulation vs. decoupling. Encapsulation is about information hiding--keeping the details hidden, decoupling is about separating a function into smaller pieces, generally for ease of reuse. What you are talking about is configuration information that can be separated into two places. This might, or might not be a good thing. It could be good if you, as the administrator want to have sole control over the server operational parameters, but want to give someone else, say a data administrator, the ability to update the welcome message without having to bother you.

This is a nice ability to have. Having multiple files comprise the configuration of the server is not necessarily good or bad. It depends on how you want to manage the service.

Have fun,
Carl Forde