I don't use P5 a great deal, and one of the reasons is that the "improvements" to the interface seem to be backward steps. Specifically, the Parameters palette that floats on top of everything. It gets in the way of the Libraries ply-out if you move it away from the image window, so if you do a lot of work going back and forth to the Libraries, you're constantly moving the Parameters palette out of the way, since it seems locked at "Stay on Top."

Is there any way to stop this behavior? Is there any way to put the parameters back down on the main layer of the interface, the way they are in P4? This seems to me a "fix" that wasn't needed, and actually makes the program, if not harder to use, at least far less 'user friendly.'

I don't know of a way to do what you're asking but I'm surprised you don't like it. I hated the parameter dials on P4 and much prefer the way they are now. They don't get in the way if you have your screen res set high, or you use a smaller preview window. I'm running 1600 x 1200 with a 1024 x 768 preview window.

I preferred the old way of doing the parameters dial too.

I run at 1280x1024, and normally use an 800x800 preview window; there's plenty of room to place the parameter floater in the empty space, but again, when I open the Libraries fly-out, it's obscured by the parameters floater, tools that I don't need when I'm browsing the Libraries. I just find the floating parameter window a pointless modification with no advantages; any of its 'improved' features could still have worked with the dials embedded in the main layer of the interface. Format itself isn't really the isue; it's the "stay on top" functionality, with no choice, that makes it an annoyance to me.

My solution to the obscuring of the libraries/animation fly-out is to use a 5-button mouse and toggle each of the fly-outs with (the side) buttons 4 and 5. Alternatively, you could also assign the keystroke Shift+Ctrl+N to an unused mouse button to toggle the parameters palette. Version 4 of the MS intellipoint software (still available from MS) allows keystrokes to be assigned to the mouse buttons in program specific ways. However MS have ceased to include this feature in the latest version (5) of the intellipoint software.