HowTo? - Globally set legacy open/save dialog view

Okay, have managed to tweak *most* of what I dislike about Win7,
diabled libraries and favorites, turned off stupid giant icons and got
Explorer view back to the Details/Date Descending that I've been
using since Win3.1 days. Fixed taskbar, fixed the theme, got away
from all the web styled view as link nonsense, but..

I cannot get the Open/Save dialog that appears whenever you
use, well, open or save in most any program, especially legacy or
XP-based programs (for instance, Irfanview, VirtualDub,etc)
to remain consistent folder to folder.

Win7 seems to insist, rather lamely, that this be manually set
with multitudinal clicking for each and every folder. Especially
if differs from the default Explorer view (i.e. Details/Descending
in Explorer, but want List/Descending in dialogs)

Went thru a long process that involved customizing almost
every folder I have to be "general items" instead of whatever
the stupid folder contents discovery decided it would be,
and then set general items to be viewed a certain way
in dialogs via registry edits. But Win7 unilaterally decided
to forget most of these changes after a short time. I also
killed libraries entirely around then so that might've been it.

Anyhow, is there anyway to have Windows7 actually respect
global folder view settings? (without using dumbass libraries/favorites)

Call me crazy, but I prefer real folders not virtual ones, named
intelligently based on contents or purpose (i.e. not stuff like "my documents"),
all located straight off the root C drive where I can navigate
to them quickly, not buried three levels deep in some favorites menu,
I know, I know, nuts.

Well, Libraries aren't 'Virtual' folders - they're 'collections' of one or more folders.

Anyway, the open/save dialogue's initial folder and view is usually decided on by the application, and some use the old legacy dialogue for no good reason at all.

If anybody knows the answer, it will be highly appreciated.