Peanut,
This is the beta where we are looking for bugs to report to Hitech. It is not in the final form for go live day. If you are having an issue with your HOTAS setup, please post a dxdiag and as clear a description as you can of the issue.
The change in the default pilot view is for the potential customers who have no joystick but still want to check out the game. The default mode for flight is a tank commander style mouse control. Unplug your joystick\throttle\peddles and fire up the game. You will see a green ring in the center of the default pilot view when you spawn on the runway. That is the default mouse control. The angled down view is due to the default FOV being 80 which cuts off the view of the primary instruments. I suspect since we are bug testing pre go live, a body of instructions for the first time player has not been incorporated into the product for the neophyte air simmer.
Hitech is trying to make the first experience of the new gamer with no flight simm experience as inviting as possible to help them want to invest the time and money being part of our community. All of us old hands, "you included", will know who to ask or how to tweek AH3 because the views and controller setups are the same as AH2.
Telling the boss you and some un-named shadow group don't like things will not get this product out the door. We need your help, so please post up exactly what is happening to your HOTAS.