I'm experimenting with BC - I've setup a 5 button controller. Each button is assigned to a different mode.
I add the BC to a dashboard and go edit the dashboard.
The first thing I expected was a BC device tile with a display of the assigned buttons. I needed to add each button seperately, one by one. My expectation was since the BC has defined components they would be dynamically inside the device tile.
next - the default of the button itself is an empty value - one must select the button and the action. If the tile has a default icon - I feel it should also have a default button # and action (pushed) assigned.
Some nuance first: Button Controller is an app, not a device (though some people do call these button devices "button controllers" as well, so that can be confusing), and Dashboard works with devices. I assume you meant that you set up a button device in Button Controller and are then adding the same button device to Dashboard using the "Button" template? If so, what you're describing sounds expected to me. The "Button" template is a way to get a button device onto Dashboard, and all it does is send the "push" command, or whichever one you choose on that device, with the specified button number. "Push" used to be the only possibility, but there are options now; maybe one could be selected by default as you suggest to eliminate some clicking for what might be the most common case? I'm not sure if there is a reasonable default for button number given that you might want anything, though I guess every device would at least have 1...
This is probably most useful with virtual buttons, especially given that "real" devices normally only report these events rather than do anything useful when running the command. However, most of the time you can also use it to simulate the same event and trigger automations like Button Controller instances via Dashboard (or anything else on the hub) instead of the real device. I assume something like this is your intent.
Related to all this, it might be interesting for there to be a "multi-button" tile for different buttons on the same device (though it should be noted that people have found ways to work around similar issues in a variety of ways, one being to make the Dashboard twice as tall as you normally would, make most tiles height 2, then make "small" tiles of height 1 and put them right next to each other, making it look like you have to things in one square). But this is not how the Button template behaves at the moment, and it is also not related to Button Controller, the app, per se--as Dashboard, again, only deals with devices. But the mulit-button/multi-action tile is a cool request if that is what you mean 
@bertabcd1234 Thanks for that thoughtful response.
In my case - I have a virtual switch for each mode. I was building using virtual switches because buttons were... odd to me. With @bravenel 's recent addition of the button controller, I've revisited.
(BTW - i modified the virtual switch driver to have a built in auto-off function (1 sec, 2, secs etc).
Now, with buttons beginning to work I'm tying new buttons to old virtual switches to make a sort of 'control board'.
Anyways. I don't really use HE dashboard as it doesn't fit my needs but it is the start point as I prepare for my external dashboard tool. I'm very fluent in css etc so I can customize it easily - or use the method you describe which is actually a pretty smart solve as well. I was feeding back from what I'm learning with the 3rd party solutions and as correctly surmise - multi-button tile based on the button controller is handling to reflect the assigned/created "children" of the controller. Thanks for the comments and thoughts!
(below is a recently added functionality to Android Dashboard)
