There is no equivalent of Edit Poly modifier in Blender. I am a long-term Max user learning 2.80 as well and unfortunately Blender's curve tools don't come anywhere close to Max's Spline tools. The great thing in Blender though is that you can work with isolated verts and edges in 3D space without connected faces. This is…
As mentioned Blender is a different modeling paradigm than Max. Shift+dragging an open border and using transform gizmos is my preferred method in Max over extruding/insetting faces(I also use a script to cycle transform gizmos with spacebar like UE4), but in Blender the quickest way to do this(your example) is:…
Speaking of extrusions between Max and Blender...What are "the Blender ways" to achieve these sorts of shapes? I know I know, Blender doesnt come with edge extrusions. I know of Maxivz's script which allows this (only in Move mode as of this date), but it's all based on addons, while I was looking more for something that…