Here's a practical example of the above applied to blendshapes : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUG3QwRjABY&feature=youtu.be As said this also works for skinweights, vertex color data, and so on.
In my experience 3d max doesn't crash at all when you do something regular, within well described work flow , something standard and well documented. But once you try to squeeze something beyond that, any new approach it's where it start to crash fiercely and doesn't tolerate even a slightest user mistake while something…
3dsmax has instancing of meshes and modifiers, they're great and very helpful. In what way do you think it's lacking or needs to be implemented in a different way? I'm kind of confused how you expect it to act "better". I've used it daily for over a decade, it rarely crashes unless I do something nutty like grab a slider…