I've never noticed that Presets option before. I've always just made my own manual selection of columns when configuring a new view. For this reason, I cannot offer any advice on the most efficient way to use Presets.
In my own case, I don't have a need for "dozens of library views". Most of the time, I use just two audio views, one for classical music and one for non-classical. They both have a 'View As' setting of Panes. The classical view is configured to show the following categories: Sub-Genre, Keywords, Composer, Album, Work, Name, while the non-classical view shows: Sub-Genre, Keywords, Artist, Album, Name, Composer.
Within each of these views, I have easy control over what music is displayed in the bottom pane via the selections I make in the top pane.
For example, in my primary classical view, if I select a Sub-Genre of 'Opera' and 'Puccini' as the Composer, then all of Puccini's operas in my collection will be listed in the bottom pane. In my non-classical view, the selection of a Sub-Genre of 'Pop/Rock' and 'R.E.M.' as the Artist will show all of R.E.M.'s albums.
For video, I normally just use one customised view, named as MyMovies. Its 'View As' setting is Categories and the only category shown in this case is Genre. When I open the MyMovies view in the Video section of MC's main menu on the left, it drops down a list of all the available genres. If I click on All Genres then all my movies appears as thumbnails in the right pane. If I click on Comedy in the left menu then only comedies are displayed in the right pane.