The first issue is now fixed in the current sources.

Your second suggestion seems a bit too awkward to me but a separate change will implement your third suggestion from bug #36871. This will make opening a series of position files less cumbersome.

As a way to encourage people to save positions for later review, I suggest two enhancements that I hope will be both easy to implement and of real value to almost all serious GnuBG users.  Either can be implemented independently and the second is the most useful. 

First, when opening an .sgf file, check if it’s a position rather than game or match.  If so, bypass the logic that checks the “Goto 1st move” flag and instead display the next-to-last position, which shows the decision to be made.  You could make this optional, but I can’t imagine who wouldn’t want it.  And if anyone does want to first see the “post-decision” position (the current display), they can always press Page Down.  Note that if “Goto 1st move” is set, the initial setup displays, and I’m sure no one wants to see that.  

Second, implement a “next file” feature.  When “<ctrl> Page Down” is pressed, open the next file in the current directory.  Alternatively, you could choose <alt> or <shift> Page Down (or any of the three) to request the next file be displayed.  Feel free to skip the “do you really want to do this” prompt.

By greatly simplifying the review of saved positions, I think people will be a lot more likely to study them.


 
Note:  This withdraws the following two features of my initial request which, although convenient, can be handled by the user: 

Optionally hide side windows on the initial display –    this can be done with either F11 (full screen) or just covering part of the screen.

If there was a failure to cube error, display it as a double/no double decision rather than showing the dice roll (which is confusing if you’re concealing the side windows).  Ignore this, because the workaround is to edit the saved position and replace the roll with a double, then resave the position.