Have just started playing with ASP.NET MVC and have stumbled over the following situation. It feels a lot like a bug but if its not, an explanation would be appreciated :)

The View contains pretty basic stuff

<%=Html.DropDownList("MyList", ViewData["MyListItems"] as SelectList)%>
<%=Html.TextBox("MyTextBox")%>

When not using a model, the value and selected item are set as expected:

//works fine
public ActionResult MyAction(){
  ViewData["MyListItems"] = new SelectList(items, "Value", "Text"); //items is an ienumerable of {Value="XXX", Text="YYY"}

  ViewData["MyList"] = "XXX"; //set the selected item to be the one with value 'XXX'
  ViewData["MyTextBox"] = "ABC"; //sets textbox value to 'ABC'

  return View();
}

But when trying to load via a model, the textbox has the value set as expected, but the dropdown doesnt get a selected item set.

//doesnt work
public ActionResult MyAction(){
  ViewData["MyListItems"] = new SelectList(items, "Value", "Text"); //items is an ienumerable of {Value="XXX", Text="YYY"}

  var model = new {
    MyList = "XXX", //set the selected item to be the one with value 'XXX'
    MyTextBox = "ABC" //sets textbox value to 'ABC'
  }

  return View(model);
}

Any ideas? My current thoughts on it are that perhaps when using a model, we're restricted to setting the selected item on the SelectList constructor instead of using the viewdata (which works fine) and passing the selectlist in with the model - which would have the benefit of cleaning the code up a little - I'm just wondering why this method doesnt work....

Many thanks for any suggestions