When an airplane takes off and I use the tower view, after the airplane is about 2nm from the airport the tower view takes off in the air and starts following the airplane. Anyway to increase that distance or at least keep the tower on the ground?

Unfortunatly it is a feature of simulator engine itself and cannot be changed. In fact, if I remember correctly it was introduced to FS9 because of users requests..

That's right. Prior to FS8, the tower never left the airport, even if you were thousands of miles away. You can, however, set the tower position manually. See http://blogs.msdn.com/tdragger/archive/200.../25/443062.aspx.