I asked the ASP.NET team a simple question: Why/How can I get the design view to work when I set the master page file in the web.config instead of the page level. Scott Guthrie replied back with a link that didn’t necessarily answer my question, but provided some good tips and tricks for Master Pages. In short, it doesn’t appear as though it can be done. This is something that might make the Orcas list. I can’t believe that in using this for the past 2 years that I haven’t noticed this.