[F12] brings up the transform type in floater which lets you adjust the position with spinners or numeric input. Although the same is available as well at the bottom of the max interface. Obviously one could write a script as well that lets you offset or keyboard style move objects around, but the question is if its worth…
If you find the change is to great on the transform spinners you can hold alt to decrease the rate of change. ctrl will speed it up. This works on most max spinners(right clicking Zeros them). I wonder though have you tried the max snapping tools. they tend to me my first port of call for accurate placement when modeling
Nope, backwards compatible is correct... If it were forwards compatible, then scripts that were made on later versions of 3d max should also work with older versions. I use the transform type-in box instead of the bottom statusbar because the floating box takes up less space (if you hide the bottom bars) But the design of…