Public contact folder

Why does Outlook 2003 automatically select the last contact in the list
in Contact public folders??? This is very odd and annoying behavior,
especially in folders where there are several thousand contacts. One
naturally expects to be either taken to the first item in the list or
to the item selected on the previous visit to the folder. All Outlook
clients in our company do this and I can't find any documentation on
it. Surely our users aren't the first to notice this and be annoyed
enough to contact their IT staff?

Just to clarify: We are using Outlook 2003, v. 11.8010.8036 SP2. This
happens anytime a Contact folder is opened. This does not happen in
card views. This does not happen if the user has create rights to the
folder and the "Show 'new item' row" property is selected in Customize
View: Other Settings.