read a lot of the posts on vwd 2008 and how slow it is.  I have been experiencing the same problems.  But on top of the slowness i have a site that uses master pages and every time i click on a field or open space to change something in design view it automatically shoots me to the top of the page where the content place holder begins.  Its very annoying and i cant figure how to stop it.  Any one else haveing this issue?  This is an old site developed in VS2005 where none of these problems existed. 

Scrolling up happens because caret is in the beginning of the element and designer attempts to make caret location visible so you can see where you are typing. If I click on relatively positioned element withing the large contentplaceholder, designer does not scroll up. Can you elaborate more about what is in the content area and what are you trying to select and/or change?