hello Jeff,
I hope I correctly understood your question,
anyway If you want t set a Layout Master as a Default Master for following new Layout you just need to open the
Layout Master settings and you will find the
"Set as Default" checkbox on the bottom of the page or (maybe easier) by right clicking on the master and choosing the same voice from the contextual menu.
Anyway I think that the problem is that in the Master settings, under the:
"Drawing Placement" > "configure Automatic placement" Button (...or something similar)
you have to check the "Create New when Layout is Empty" checkbox (...or something similar...sorry but I use the italian version of ARCHICAD).
About the Anchor point of Drawings, I suppose that the position depends on the Anchor point you set in the default Drawing Tools settings:
to change them you just need to deselect everything by pressing "ESC" and then selecting the
Drawing Tool from the Tool Box and
open the drawing settings...here you can change Anchor default point!
I hope it works!