I wanted to change the number of images displayed in the image assist pop up from 6 (3 x 2), to 18 (6 x 3).
I edited the view, modified the Grid and Nodes per page settings and saved the view.
Cleared the views cache, also the drupal cache (Admin > Performance) just in case.
Now when I view the image assist pop up window from TinyMCE, the view contains the 'edit, export, clone' UL/tabs.

Cloning the image assist browser view, changinge the settings, selecting the new view in image assist preferences, still makes the tabs appear.

Is this an access control issue which appears only after modifying the default image assist view?

A workaround is to:
1. disable and uninstall image assist
3. edit the /modules/img_assist/includes/img_assist.views.inc, and change the items_per_page and columns values (near line 164)
4. re-enable the module, which re-installs it's own view with new default settings.