I have to protect you Derek. People, I don't understand you. You've read such wishes here, that would make the 3dsmax to be a more user friendly software. Also I'm doing arhviz, and Derek's list forms my opinion too, those are the features I'm really missing. Those a few improvements would make the workflow much easier, and more effective.
And finally: the solutions you've mentioned are ok, but there could be a much more easier way for each of them. Max's editing functions takes 2-3× more energy, as normally should be...