A question about views and how to let sub menus link to the view like the main menu
By default a link will be created to the full node view, as you described. When you want an item to link to another url, you need to rewrite the url.

To do so go to the view settings page and click on the field you want the link to be different of. Next go to the 'rewrite results' part of the settings schreen. check 'display field as link' and enter the correct url in the 'path' field.

Hope this helps