I felt the same until I discovered the Del and End keys; but Edge Panning should be more functional than it is... I'd really like to be able to tilt the camera 'up' as well
Yeah I'd like to be able to tilt the camera for a better angle too. But I have a feeling we will be restricted to pan, rotate and zoom as a method of limiting the load on the GPU by restricting the amount on the screen at any one time. Even the levels are designed such that you only really get to see a panorama at the edge of the map.