Well the clouds finally gave way after weeks of horrible weather. I was able to run some tests with the new 2.5.0.23 release and 2.5.1.11beta. It seems the 'center here' function is broken again! It worked in 2.5.0.22beta but failed after the landscape view was returned to portrait. If I select a point 180 degrees rotated from the point I want centered everything works as expected.
Other than that I used the new auto focus and it works great.
(This is a copy of a post I sent to the original thread ... it's been about 11 days and no response so I thought I'd repost as a new thread.)