Peter, thanks for responding. I just centered a layout, saved it, and when I opened it again, it was down, partway off the page. Even if your method did work, why on Earth should I have to center a spread and save it that way, just to have InDesign open documents in a manner that should be its default behavior? What logic is there to open a file up, down or otherwise not centered in the window, if that's NOT the way you left it? Even when I try zooming in, selecting some text, saving that position, and re-opening the file, the spread has moved when I re-open the file. It's driving me crazy.

Steve, thanks for your testing; I appreciate it. You're right that if you save a doc with spread "fit in window" it'll remember that. But let's say that I'm on a big monitor. So I "fit in window" so it's centered, then I "command-minus-sign" to reduce its size to a more workable zoom level. Great: it's still centered. I do some work and save it. When I re-open the file, it remembered the zoom level, but the spread is halfway down off the page and to one side. Why? I'm perfectly willing to jump through a few hoops to make InDesign act the way I want, but in this case it won't even do that. Why does it do this? It makes working feel messy and it feels like a bug. Typographers are detail people, and this behavior is both inexplicable and frustrating. Wouldn't you agree, Steve?

Peter, regarding your manual "replace preferences" method, I did that, and InDesign still moves the spread when it's re-opened (unless I adhere to Steve Werner's limitation of only using "fit in window" before I close it.) If for any reason I zoom out a bit while working, and save it that way, when the file is re-opened, it very much off-center, and cannot really be worked on until I pull it back to a quasi-centered position. I don't think I'm unusual in wanting to work on a spread that's approximately in the middle of my window. There's absolutely no reason for InDesign to move the position of the spread when it's re-opened. It's not a "feature request," as Steve Werner said, it's a bug... Plain and simple. And far from "honestly, I don't think most people notice," I respectfully disagree: I think people notice. I'm hugely appreciative of anyone who helps with these forums, don't get me wrong. Your input, and Steve's input helped me think through this problem. I now firmly believe it's an interface bug, and will request that Adobe fix it in a future release. Thanks again.