Back when X1 was first released, I was dismayed to find that I had to hold Shift to constrain note movement in either pitch or time dimensions when using the Smart tool in the PRV.
 
In previous versions, using the old PRV Draw tool, notes had a time hotspot (the first third of the note duration) and a pitch hotspot (the middle third of the note) where you would get a double-ended arrow cursor indicating that movement would be constrained to one dimension or the other without having to use a modifier key. This was in addition to the note start and end hotspots that we still have.
 
I submitted a formal Feature Request at the time, but, alas, this was never re-implemented.
 
I think this time/pitch hotspot functionality could be brought back for both the Smart tool and the Move tool while still allowing the use of Shift to let the note move in whichever direction the user drags first without having to aim for a hotspot.
 
How about it, Bakers?

A complete re-working of the Tools would be good.   They are clearly worse than earlier sonar versions.   The "Smart" tool is so often dumb ...

Also, with large monitors at high resolution, ANY hotspot is difficult to find and click, so as much as possible, I'd vote to do away with hotspots everywhere, or at least, everywhere that the thing-to-be-clicked is smaller than some reasonable gang of pixels.   Try clicking on a hotspot on a midi note in PRV with a few octaves in view and a number of measures ...

I'm not sure what that accomplishes. Yes, you have to zoom the view to a point that the editing functions and tools can be used effectively. It was ever thus. Saying you want all hotspots to go away at low zoom levels means you basically don't want to be able to edit individual notes at all at a certain point...?
 
Also, I don't use it, but there's a customizable microscope mode to help address that situation.
 

I suppose work habits differ.  I often work with thousands, tens of thousands of notes ... "microscoping" them one by one just is not feasible, but pressing an alternate-function key would be easy.