"an Extrude modifier and then a cap holes modifier" Good, this works also. The other solution was probably turning invisible because of welding problems.
Looks like a smoothing problem on the mesh. Have you tried applying a smooth modifier or clearing the smoothing groups in editable poly? Or it could also be a uvw map problem. Apply an unwrap modifier and check the seems for texture padding issue.
if you have access to the sdk the way edges and faces are constructed is in the file c:\..\maxsdk\samples\modifiers\uvwunwrap\TVData.cpp though it ain't pretty :?
I don't think you can out of the box but with a little scripting you can create two macro's that can be hotkey'ed. I'm not sure how comfortable you are with maxscript so let me know if this seems like a bunch of gobbledygook.macroScript SoftSelFalloffPlusCategory:"MyTools"toolTip:"Soft Sel Falloff…