seeking tweak to change default view & sort of "open..." "save as...", "attach..(etc)

[808pants]

Just about every time I go to open, "save as...", or attach a file, I wish I could DEFAULT-configure the "browse" window to show me all details and sort by date, newest on top (since I usually have all kinds of old crap in the folder I've opened, with related or confusingly-close names, & of course I want to be sure I pluck out the right one, usually the latest version.) I keep thinking there has to be a way, but...I'm not finding it. The clicking-around-ritual required each time to change the view, sort by date, then reverse the sort so the newest is at the top of the list is tedious - and gets mind-bogglingly slow when I have to deal with a lot of files in that manner. All I have found is some for-pay software to do this - but it seems like this should be a standard XP feature. Wishful thinking?