Ok, I see what your talking about now. Here is what the deal is. The Front, Side, and Top views were basicly made for drawing curves and rigging.The perspective view is primarily for modeling and various animation methods. Maya cannot place the grid the way you want( behind a image plain ) in the Front, Top, and Side views because the work flow for those views are 2D, not 3D. For example, when you draw a curve on Top view to make a pot or something ( depending on your project ) you can scale, rotate, and translate your curve in your perspective view to make whatever you need.

The basic thing to remember is that the Top, Side, and Front views are 2D and the perspective view is 3D.

Here are a couple of pics to show all the perspectives. Notice the Front, Top, and Side views only show one side of the curve ( thus being 2D ). And when you look at the perspective view ( which is 3D ) , you can see around the object.