Probably current behavior is preferable for novice users. Advanced users can turn off volume propagation with a few lines of Python code, e.g., for disable for the red slice view:

slicer.mrmlScene.GetNodeByID('vtkMRMLSliceCompositeNodeRed').SetDoPropagateVolumeSelection(False)

It still seems to reset the field of view to "Fit to all" (see implementation in vtkMRMLApplicationLogic::vtkInternal::PropagateVolumeSelection).

Two changes that might be considered:

• Restrict field of view reset to views where propagation is enabled
• Add an option on the GUI that allows users to disable propagation by default

Agreed this is a useful advanced feature. It should be selectable on a per-sliceView basis, and could be exposed in the slice view controller. But people do already complain that these are overly complicated. It may be better to just expose the API so that custom scenarios can be constructed programatically.

Committed a fix for the FOV reset during volume selection propagation for slice views where propagation was disabled:
http://viewvc.slicer.org/viewvc.cgi/Slicer4?view=revision&revision=24304

Now with 3 lines of python code the propagation can be disabled. You can create a shortcut that starts Slicer with the --python-code option to enter these 3 lines or create a simple scripted module that allows changing the default propagation settings.