This discussion has been mainly about DC circuits. I’ll add that the
field-oriented or micro viewpoint has some interesting pedagogical
advantages for RC circuits, as was in fact verified in the study by
Thatcher, Ganiel, and Boys. It focuses on the role of the fringe field just
outside the plates of a parallel-plate capacitor. It is this field that
drives current near the capacitor, whereas the field between the plates,
which is essentially the focus of the macro viewpoint (in the form of the
potential difference across the gap), is present in a place where there
aren’t mobile charges to be affected.
I remember being puzzled as to how and why a capacitor would discharge
through a resistor: aren’t the plus and minus charges on the plates
attracting each other, and shouldn’t that attraction prevent the charges
from leaking off? But just outside the positively charged plate the fringe
field of the capacitor in fact points away from the positive plate, in a
direction to move positive charge away from the positive plate (or attract
electrons toward the plate); similar arguments apply just outside the
negative plate.
Also, the micro viewpoint helps one see why the node rule applies to a
capacitor despite the gap. If during charging more conventional current
flows onto the positive plate than flows off the negative plate, the net
charge of the capacitor becomes positive, which slows down the incoming
conventional current and increases the outgoing conventional current,which
reduces the net positive charge on the capacitor and brings the incoming
and outgoing current into being more equal. This is another example of
feedback.