I think you missed what i was saying.
LE3's level editor by default has 4 viewports, 1x3d, 3x2d.
The 3x2d viewports can scale gridsize independently of each other for example vp1 could be 8, vp2 could be 4 and vp3 could be 2.
This makes aligning things a nightmare, especially on larger leveling. However, if vp1, vp2 and vp3 where all set to 2, 4 or 8 it would make things simpler - you can select an object on the same axis as your looking to match up to so that you can see the line in the viewport.
That just comes down to experience and practice, some people can never see a 3d shape whilst looking at 2d viewports. Its unfortunate but it happens, others can only 2d viewports and visualize the level.
Both scaling & moving can be easily done in the 2d viewports, You can position yourself in the 3d viewport to see what you are moving quite easily. Unless you manually have the option to set the 3d viewports gridsize resizing objects in it would snap to any grid, which isn't precise.