Dave,
Ok, I was able to find the Document Properties dialog.
As you mention, this only applies for one document and I'm looking for a solution that will work for hundreds of new documents as wel as for read-only pdfs.
Thanks for the try.
Right now, as you guessed, it is not possible, at least not out of the box. In Preferences > Page Display, you can set a Default for the Page Layout and Zoom level on your own computer, and this would probably be the place you would find it if it existed.
I suggest you put in a feature request to the engineers who work at Adobe, using the form at this link:
Feature Request/Bug Report Form
