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No, I think that AI setup zones always make sense. And the randomness is not a cost, but a big benefit, because it allows enemy units to set up in a random location - this is great for replayability.
Say you have an AT gun and you paint its setup zone. You don't need to paint the zone as one big box - you can paint many individual squares and when the battle begins, the gun will be placed in just one of those locations, keeping the player guessing.
And then you can combine with different AI plans so that in Plan 1, the Germans defend the village with the majority of their forces, but their units are semi-randomly positioned there, and in Plan 2, they mostly defend the river crossing, but again you don't know where they are exactly, and so on.
I wish more scenario designers would use these tricks.
The only downside is that first of all, it's a lot of work, and secondly, by painting setup zones you lose the ability to place a unit very exactly on the map. Sometimes, this means no line of fire.

This is for the player to setup their forces. The designer has to use the unit deployment to place the scenario units in the setup zones so the player can move them where they want or the designer can place some or all of the units outside the setup zone in which case the player cannot move them.
Note: units always get a deployment location this default location is terrible and will not be restricted to the painted deployment zones- make sure you place all units yourself as the designer. I recommend you pick a decent first draft of an attack formation or defensive setup. Alternatively you could organize them so platoons, companies and battalions are positioned in an organized way.
 
This allows AI plan specific placement of various groups. If you do not provide a setup area for a group in an AI plan they will start where they are set in the unit deployment.
Note: the final setup for AI units into their setup zones is not done right away when you are running in scenario design mode. At first all units are placed in the locations they had during deployment and when the clock actually starts the snap to the locations that match the chosen AI plan's setup zones.
 
This is for the scenario designer to setup default locations for units. They can use that position for all their AI plans or they can create plan specific setup areas. The deploy action allows you to very specifically setup units and give them face orders. The painted AI plan setup areas allow the AI to pick a place within the painted area.

I could write a very long post about this topic but I'll keep it simple.
You PAINT up to three set-up zones for both players - Blue 1, 2 and 3 and Red 1, 2 (pink) and 3 (orange) and any units that are placed in these zones in the editor by the designer can be re-positioned by the player (and the AI through painting yellow zones) anywhere in the same set-up zone. Units not placed in a set-up zone are fixed in place and can't be re-positioned by either side. A lot of the time, players just paint one large Blue-1 or Red-1 set up zone and don't bother with the others. The extra allows the designer to exert a much more sophisticated level of control over AI placement in plans.
You can overlap these zones and units placed in such a mixed zone can be placed in both. I don't do this intentionally as I have my own system.
The player can position the AI's units very precisely in the editor and, as long as you don't paint any yellow set up positions for the group in order 1 in a plan, they will stay there at set-up if that plan is selected. Or you can paint certain sections of the set-up zone with yellow boxes and decide if they'll set up on Lower Floors, Upper Floors, Rooftops or a mix if they are in buildings.
There are five possible AI Plans so if if you're not too particular, you can paint zones for the AI groups and it will place units from that group randomly in that yellow set-up zone in that plan. If you're only planning to use one plan, set the units up by yourself. 

a few additional thoughts...maybe not all applicable but I wanted to puke it out for the record
For scenarios where it is "playable in all modes", the human wants to have flexibility to position HIS troops as he desires. Allies or Axis side. Some players get all angry if you limit them too much. oh well. The 3 different color set up zones can be fun to try and allow some flexibility for some units but not have a big gun up forward too far for example. You can have discontinuous usage of the 3 colors. 2,3,4+ big reds in the back. 2,3,4+ oranges mid way. 2,3,4+ pinks up front. same for the blue side.
The AI does what it is told. the little yellow dots and you face the unit with the green dot. 32 groups now I think and 5 AI plans. LOTS OF DOTS.
in the editor make sure all the stuff is in the proper colored set up zone(s) that match to the yellow set up dot of the AI plan for that group...OR IT GLITCHES.
I think I rattled that off correctly.  
FUN STUFF!

I'm actually not offended, but I invite you to take a look at it from the other side. Some of us spent a long time testing and reproducing bugs and dutifully logging them in order to help improve the game.
Maybe in a couple of cases, I've been wrong about a bug, that's possible. But in most of the cases, I'm pretty sure I have been right. And in some cases, those bugs have then been picked up by a beta tester like yourself, verified, and then fixed, which was very nice.
In recent years though, patches have been getting pretty scarce, and I'm sure there are many good reasons for that. But I'm also sure the reason is not that there are no more bugs to fix. If BFC prefers to focus on developing a PBEM tournament system instead of doing patches or new features, that's of course their decision.
The thing that triggered me was not that the stuff I like doesn't get worked on. I understand there are many different things to balance when running a business, and feedback from geeks like me is just one of them. It was more that I was getting the feeling that the community here is in general being looked down on and portrayed as irrational, childish, and unreasonable, when I think there are actually a lot of really clever and creative people here.
Not including myself, because my contribution has been mostly limited to bug reports, various gameplay change suggestions, a couple of scenarios, and trying to help people with tech and gameplay questions. And, yes, occasional grumbling.
But I think Battlefront's "typical customer" deserves a bit more credit. Unless there are a lot of angry and stupid players out there that I overlooked.

The National Park Service and groups like the “Battlefield Trust” have done and continue to do a nice job of preservation.  I live nearby and have walked  the Peach Orchard to Wheat field area over the years and seen improvements. The larger battle has many interesting facets and  stories.