Art said:
Out of curiosity, as the universe started from a point and as we look ever further into space we are also looking back in time why don't we see matter from these furthest regions clumped together more as it was shortly after the creation of the universe and why don't we see space as a sort of shrinking conelike shape as we look back further as the universe was smaller then?
You seem to have a good geometric intuition Art---there is infact a kind of optical distortion of apparent sizes as you look back to an earlier less-expanded universe---but the effect is not like looking into the inside of a cone (as you imagined it).
So you haven't got it yet, although you get cheers for realizing that there is going to be a fun-house weird optic effect.
Do you understand using the redshift z as a measure of how far something is? (there are online calculators to convert z to lightyears if you need, it is not a linear conversion so you want a calculator programmed for it.)
Say a typical spiral galaxy is 100,000 lightyear diameter and use that as an imaginary ruler. Then what you expect is that the farther away it is the smaller it will look (the smaller ANGLE size it has in the sky). That's normal perspective we are used to. And that works in the sky OUT TO A CERTAIN DISTANCE and then it gets overwhelmed by the effect that looking back in past means seeing a less-expanded universe.
Once a standardsize object is out as far as around z = 1.5 it looks the smallest angle that it ever gets. Past that point it actually looks BIGGER the farther away. Subtends a larger and larger angle, the farther away it is.
the reason is it lives in a universe that was smaller, and our picture of it and its surroundings is necessarily projected all around the 360 degree sphere of the sky.
there is no preferred direction, like with the point of a cone you imagine. the lightrays come from all directions (from that much older smaller world)
so its standardsize objects look bigger, anglewise.
they are dimmer all right. but the dim silhouette occupies more angle.
that is what corresponds to your idea of looking into the inside of a cone at a diminishing size world.
the older smaller world is ALL AROUND US. the earlier less expanded universe we can see in every direction
as if giant shadows were projected on a distant spherical screen----but they are real galaxies not shadows
======some technical details in case you want===
the point might be z = 1.6, I don't remember exactly.
you can find it by playing with Ned Wright's cosmological calculator
keep trying different z until you find the "maximum angular size distance" which means the same thing as the z where a standardsize object looks smallest i.e. farthest away.
just google Ned Wright and you will find the cosmological calculator, the oldest version is the best because simplest to use.
I googled it for you, here is the basic Ned Wright calculator
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/CosmoCalc.html
I'm looking for information not trying to impart any. I only mentioned a conelike shape as it seemed the best way to describe a shrinking horizon as looking back in time equates to a smaller universe. 
