The main idea behind the MPSH concept is to calculate the spectrum for the molecule only (or even a segment of the molecule), in order to see the influence of the contacts on the molecular spectrum. The charge which is carried away into the leads in the open system naturally redistributes the charge configuration of the molecule, and this is an important reason for the modification of the spectrum. The level broadening doe to the coupling to the semi-infinite electrodes is another; to see this, you should however rather look at the surface density of states.
It can sometimes make sense to include the whole central region, but it will produce a huge amount of energy levels which are not really relevant, and it might become difficult to identify those that belong to the molecule. In this case, but also in general, one should always compute the density of states as well to ensure that the MPSH levels obtained are localized states (sharp peaks in the DOS).