I may have just answered my own question. I was digging in "1001 Things You Wanted to Know About Visual FoxPro" and the following:

"One word of caution! If you do create views programatically, be sure you to not then inadvertently try to modify them in the view designer because you may end up with a view that no longer does what it is meant to."

Well, I wasn't inadvertently trying to modify a programatically created view, I was blatantly trying to do it ... but either way, I guess that answers my question.