"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.
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…
For 3d max, im sure a lot of you have a custom modifier set under the modifier list. They are long rectangular boxes with text on them, is there any way to convert these into little buttons, similar to the ones on the toolbars? I have 4 rows of buttons in there when it could only be taking up 1 row.