RichD, have you ever tried flying with the view option "Look at Ground" turned on? If not, please try it and see what you think of it. Keep in mind that any time you change planes you'll have to reset it (I have no idea why Knife Edge didn't make it persistant).

I agree that ground reference is easier for real than it is in the simulator, but it's really not too bad if you keep the ground in view. If you fly a regular pattern you'll pretty much always see a part of the runway and it makes it real easy. Of course your plane gets smaller faster as it gets farther away but it's not an issue if you use a high enough resolution (I run in 1600x1200 with trees turned off on a PIII 1.5Ghz, but a friend uses this view in 1280x1024 to good effect).

Also, as you noticed...the rudder is key to most of the accurate manuvers you wish to do. Make sure you add rudder into your practice early on (make a practice plane with the aileron control throws set to zero if you're having trouble...you'll learn quick ).

Chuck