Update:
it seems to be related to the Properties Panels and mcneel team are aware of this as reported by Brian above.
Usually, I default my workspace to the layer’s panels, that’s why I don’t get that. so the whole exercise I did above didn’t mean anything helpful
Although I reported this a year ago, it seems now it is narrowed down to the below:
as a conclusion, the camera properties often fail to catch up and update the camera location on the properties panel causing the camera to revert to the last documented location. The Properties panel’s UI requires some optimization to get things fixed.
V7 :
in V7: the properties panel update the location values like this:
vs V8 :