I've polished up and submitted my view distance script to the ed depot. It can be found here:
http://www.ofpec.com/editors/resource_view.php?id=731The script will set it so the player can always see the ground X meters in front of him, regardless of height. For example, you could set it to be 1000 meters, which would mean that on the ground, viewdistance = 1000, while at an altitude of 500 meters, viewdistance = 1120.
I still think the player can just adjust this himself (I can set my VD to 5000 on Nogova without much lag), but if you only have v1.46, or a slow comp, this could be handy. And I guess you can use this kinda like you would use fog, to limit the player's view, as well.