Hi,
Yesterday, I watched a 7-year old girl use Etoys to assemble a face using ellipses and rectangles. Sometimes, the rotation center had to be changed from the default for embed ops (e.g. ears). I had taught her to bring up the halo menu and and use the red menu button to turn on the direction handle. She discovered that moving the rotate button leaves behind the direction handle and preferred to use it. When the rotate button is used, the direction handles appear and stays on even when the rotation ends with the original heading.
My initial reaction was to make a note to file a trac ticket. But then, watching the ease with which she used the rotate button to bring up the direction handle and move it around, I realized this jiggle gesture comes easily and naturally than shift click for children. Jiggle the dup button to get a sibling, jiggle the color button to get a property sheet and so on.
BTW, I made a one-liner fix to use simple drag (instead of shift-drag) for moving direction handles. If others can try this out and find it useful, I will file a ticket for its inclusion in Etoys.
Subbu