Any way to estimate Avg. Pos. in AdWords?

Is there any way to estimate your Avg. Pos. in AdWords? AFAICT I cannot see what bid will get me which position and that is really very time consuming. I mean: the Avg. Pos. for a specific keyword might be 23.2 but in order to increase that, there is no real way of knowing which Max CPC to use. Even when you change the Max CPC there is no change: it will still say Avg. Pos. 23.2! So I'm guessing you have to increase the CPC, wait a day or so, then come back and have a look at your Avg. Pos., right? It would be great if Google could provide some kind of info on that...

If your keywords are broad or phrase match your average position will almost never the same as the actual position for that keyword/phrase.

For example, if you search for blue widgets (broadmatch) you might see your ad at position 5, but when you check your average position it may say postition 7.5 . The reason for this is that more advertisers may be biding on [cheap blue widgets] (exact match) or "cheap blue widgets" (phrase match). Your keyword is on broadmatch and is triggered by a search for cheap blue widgets, but due to more competition with potentially higher bids your ad is pushed below position 5 thus lowering your average position.

Bid changes usually come into effect within 10-15 minutes. You need to check the changes by doing a search because the Adwords data is not updated instantly.