Hi,
Thanks for the interest in our plugins.
I can help out, it is possible to set any of the views (month, list, photo, map, etc..) as the default view from the admin.
So yes to your first question.
It is also possible to use this setting in the general settings of the plugin “Recurring event instances” to hide all but the first instance of a recurring event on a page load. This does not work in the month view though and that is intentional.
Let me know if you have any follow up questions.
Thanks