It seems that switching the preview mesh in the control rig editor is affecting the initial transforms in the hiearchies of related control rigs in the level viewport. This seems to be due to the call in FControlRigEditor::HandleSetObjectBeingDebugged where we set the new hierarchy on the control rig blueprint:
RigBlueprint->Hierarchy->CopyPose(DebuggedControlRig->GetHierarchy(), false, true, false);
The new hierarchy is then copied to the CDO which is then copied to each of the control rigs when the blueprint is compiled. That changes the pose of the mesh in the level viewport.