<p>How does one preserve the settings in the Open Dialog box?  For example, I would the Open Dialog to remember that I chose the Details view and sorted by date modified.</p>

Microsoft didn't see fit to give us any documented way of doing this, but some people have figured out bits of the puzzle.  This link shows how to set the view, but not how to get the current setting:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc164009.aspx