I have to chime in on this also. I agree that we have lost some very powerful flexibility here. Mainly:

1) The view designer sees macro substitution as a syntax error. Argh! Bummer! (ie. &cWhere). Therefore, we can only "programmatically" create this type of view. This feature is very powerful when used in conjuction with a "user-defined query" function in your application. Not just for reports, but for limited data for maintenance functions. It gives users the ability to select the sub-set of data they want to work on to be anything they desire. Of course, you would use another means, or limit your user-defined query in cases where you don't want users looking at data they should not be looking at. (as somebody mentioned).

2) I think the '?' question mark should be allowed to be used along with the '&' in order to tell the view designer that this value (with or without the macro) should only be evaluated upon opening the view or requerying it.

3) Yes, it would be great to have this macro thing working with "Remote Views" also.

I hope MS tweeks this some.
Mark