Thanks, Clark.
I did some more testing and you are right -it doesn't happen every time. It probably seemed like it because I generally have at least one instance running unless I reboot, upgrade VS or apply a hotfix. If those are the only times it happens, I wouldn't worry about it too much. If you were to do something, ENV variable seems like a good way to make the veteran users happy, and still be user-friendly to newer/less-experienced users.
Thanks,
Jeff