Forrest,
-This is not a poll [Yet]
-Please add your OS and archicad version to your profile. For some questions the answers will vary.
-Post a screen-shot. This instantly communicates the dim. text display problem you are experiencing. Note on it what you want (photoshop) if it is not obvious.
While North is usually depicted up, I have worked on projects when it was to the left or right and did not have problems with dimension orientation.
That said, we haven't seen what you are looking at and which clearly is a problem.
Erika
Architect, Consultant
MacBook Pro Retina, 15-inch Yosemite 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7 16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Mac OSX 10.11.1
AC5-18
Onuma System
"Implementing Successful Building Information Modeling"