Well, the closer to the middle, the more Earthlike the climate will be, we just happen to be smack in the middle of the habitable zone of ours.
Closer to the middle is optimal for Terran life, and really though, the habitable zone is much fuzzier than the one in US appears to give. Venus is a bit beyond the inner edge in US and it is along the inner edge of the HZ in RL, but if it didn't have a runaway greenhouse effect, it would still be hot (average temperature being 150 F if it had an earth setting atmosphere in US), but there would be liquid water and thus the possibility of life. Mars on the other hand is at the outer edge and using the earth atmosphere setting goes below 0 degrees F for most of the time, but with a sufficiently thick atmosphere or sufficient CO2, it would be warm enough for liquid water and there are plenty of signs that it had liquid water at one point in its past.
What I'm saying is that it's somewhat fuzzy because you have to take into account other factors. If Earth lost its magnetic field, it might have ended up like Mars (or at least Hoth as it would have more water) and as I said above, the atmosphere is a major factor.
Also, the boiling point of water I referred to is that of water at sea level atmospheric pressure, so if Venus's atmosphere were denser, the boiling point would be higher.