Back in my toolmaking days, when we had the head of the CNC m/c swung around at an angle, we used to align the spindle to a tooling hole using something I thought was called an "Ickey Ball". It is basically a ball on the end of a dowel with a shoulder, the ball was therefore aligned to the hole...
I used a 3dconnexion spaceball on a Sun W/S using C3P I-DEAS. It worked perfectly for 3D but not for 2D drawings. Once you have used one you wonder how you managed without it.
Basically it works as though the part/assembly was the ball in your hand - you can rotate/pan/zoom all in one movement!
Try UG or I-DEAS. I worked in tool design using I-DEAS and found it to be an excellent package - very powerful in 3D Solid Modelling, problem is it does take some learning and its surfacing ability is quite poor. UG looks about the best but I haven't used it myself, other people in my company...
Toolmaker I used to work for use mainly UG, which I think was the best, but also I-DEAS which is very good and Catia. I think they are all very good for tool design but UG was the most powerful and user friendly.
