I must admit that I haven't actually used the Record and Restore desktop, I haven't had to.
Also, I don't have any trouble with the desktop layout and I always get the resizing pointer. My map window is always "maximised" with scroll bars, rather than displayed as a window. Maybe this makes a difference? I always use default.ml3 and zoom and scroll as required and I never display the vertical tracking view.
I have closed all the windows down too, "hide interface" and close the map, and it all comes back OK when I show the interface and open default.ml3 again. The only problem I have is the map colours sometimes not being remembered on startup, but that's a familiar issue.