[Gimp-user] Redesign "move selection"?

[lofreq <forums gimpusers com>]

I am a new user, but I know exactly what I need from GIMP.  I tested out my
workflow from start to finish the other day, and while most of my flubs were
from inexperience, a lost a lot of time to trying to move selections around. I
did some research and found that many others share similar frustrations with how
unintuitive the move tool is in this regard. Is there any talk of redesigning
it?

I also encountered another problem with the feature that I did not see addressed
anywhere else, which may be actually a bug. So what I use it for (and have with
great ease and efficiency in Photoshop) is in "hand" lettering my comics -
basically, I will write out the contents of the word balloons in a template
file, copy and paste them into my pages, and fine-tune their placement. These
wind up being hand-written letters on transparent layers. The dimensions of
these layers are much smaller than that of the page itself. However, I usually
need to move individual words or lines of text around once I've pasted it on top
of the word balloon, and I've found that I cannot move the selection/floating
layer beyond the borders of the original layer. In fact, it disappears,
functioning like a mask. I know the current solution is to copy/paste the
selection content into a new layer, but that seems excessive, given that
sometimes I have to move dozens of words or lines around on any given page, and
sometimes by only a few pixels, especially in the case of tweaking the spacing
between individual letters.

So my two questions are as follows, I guess:

1. Is it at all possible to just click and drag selections? Why is it necessary
to hold down ctrl+alt to accomplish this?

2. Is the masking behavior of floating layers a bug or a feature? Either or, it
needs fixing. Or at the very least a toggle, because I can't imagine a single
instance where that would be preferable to just using an actual mask.

-- 
lofreq (via www.gimpusers.com/forums)