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It seems the biggest gripe about rangefinders (vs SLRs) is that your shots are not quite what you see, there is a parallax error due to not seeing through the lens.
Which makes me think, if you put the rangefinder viewport directly above the lens it would eliminate horizontal parallax. This would be nice.
Is it just the fact that the lens blocks some of the view and you want to have the viewport far enough away to avoid this, or is there a physical issue too with how the rangefinder functions?
Rangefinders use two "viewports" in order to get the split image to aid in focusing.
If you look closely you will see the second little window usually near the lens itself.
It would be possible to reverse to the position of the two "viewports" but there would still be vertical parallax error.
Since there will always be some form of parallax error, it is better to keep the primary viewfinder away from the lens.
One advantage of having the viewfinder on the top left corner of the camera is that you can get your right eye very close to the viewfinder without having your nose bump against the back of the camera as happens with most SLRs.
It also makes it easier to keep your left eye open to keep tabs on your surroundings while looking through the viewfinder, since it will not be blocked by the camera body.
