Bug#583973: Unconfirming
On second look, it seems as though I cannot repeat this behavior. Funny though, as I probably wouldn't have found this bug had I not been familiar with the behavior John described. Perhaps this was fixed in a recent version of evince without my noticing.
Bug#583973: confirming evince bug #583973
I can confirm this with evince 2.30.3. The current behavior is a bit frustrating. As John notes, the default zoom level is too small for comfortable reading.