The way I do cloth - start the figure in its zero pose on frame 1, with the cloth positioned over it. Move to frame 30 or so and pose the figure in the way that I need the figure to be. This gives the cloth enough time to drape itself as the figure is moving into the desired pose. Set up the cloth with whatever decorative groups, pins, etc, then simulate.

You can use the posing camera to move around the figure while you're working on it, and keep the main camera positioned where you want it to be. Any camera movements you make between frames 1 and 30 (or however many frames you need to use), will be keyed along with the pose animations, so make sure you set your main camera up and then move to a different camera (posing camera) before running the sim.

As far as I'm aware, there isn't a way to successfully drape cloth without using the animation pallet. Because the cloth is (usually) built in a T-pose like the figure is, it requires the figure to move through animation in order to drape around the figure as it is moving into its final pose.