...which brings up the question of what is the purpose of the directors view? Why is the 'director' opposite the camera, looking right at it? You'd think that the 'director' would like to see what the camera sees or am I missing something?

Also, why is the default camera view at a 45 degree angle looking from the South-East (lower right) to the North-West (upper left)? This makes it difficult (for me) to numericaly position my objects in the scene.

Before I start a new scene, the first thing I do is move the main camera to the bottom of the scene, looking North, centered on the x-axis. This makes it easy for me to move and reposition object left/right on the x-axis and forward/back on the z-axis as diolma pointed out...