How can I configure Slicer to open automatically with my preferred settings for the View Controllers module?

[DIV]

@lassoan

You can use many volumes to create the segments and not all of them have the same size and resolution. Also, you typically want the segmentation to be isotropic and sometimes you want it to be somewhat finer resolution than the input volume […].
[…]
You can set the segment’s geometry using the “Specify geometry” button, then the user does not need to resample the volume (the segment editor module resamples it internally).

So then from your comments and the documentation at Segment editor — 3D Slicer documentation I think I understand now.

• Each Segmentation must be associated with a Volume (providing radiodensity) and a Geometry (providing the grid) at any given moment.
• The Geometry of the Segmentation can be identical to the geometry of its Master Volume, or it can be a modified version of that (e.g. forced to be isotropic), or it can be based on a totally different source (possibly a Volume, with prespecified geometry, or perhaps a ROI with a customisable user-specified geometry).
• From time to time the Volume and/or Geometry on which a Segmentation is based can be changed.

@lassoan

Staircase effect is mostly due to anisotropic spacing. Using Crop volume with isotropic spacing option eliminates this artifact. […] [T]ypically it is simpler, more clear, and more memory efficient if the user crops and resamples the input volume before segmentation.

Thank-you, Andras, I appreciate your advice, and will be aware of the benefits of applying isotropic sampling in future. I had avoided this until now because I naïvely assumed that applying more transformations would likely introduce more artefacts!
I am glad to hear that cropping the volume is considered an efficient approach — at least for my purposes, where the individual features of interest might occupy less than 1% of the whole original scan volume.
—DIV