After it failed to launch at all I rebooted and worked, and I just tried opening and closing it repeatedly and it seems to be fine now. And yup, 2.52.

I've been through the view options and set it up as I liked before I posted. Works great btw. But I'd still love what I described. In ortho view moving the puck almost the same plane as the desk it's sitting on feels great for panning, but in a perspective view panning feels more natural to me 90 degrees to that, or in the plane of the monitor. Right now I've been using the mouse for ortho view panning and it's fine that way if that's what I have to do.

I haven't looked into MoI's scripting yet, but if it's something that could be handled that way instead of creating a complex UI then that would be okay with me.

Thanks,
ken