Every ship can have its own unique positions for external views. I think that now more time is spend to give each ship is own, most optimal external views. I assume it are the positions Griff thought to be the best.
i've used the view settings from the core game in the latest oxp update, the camera was positioned a bit further out before in the older versions but i think it was making the textures a bit mip-map blurry
I think kanthoney is right... I think some shipsets (including I believe the original core shipset) place the external camera views pointing directly at the ship. The new shipset places them looking over the top. I actually prefer this as it makes the external views more useful. (In my Broke Adder game I now tend to switch to a rear external view when docking, as it gives me a good impression of my position in relation to the docking bay))