AndertonAha! I see the problem. I thought clicking on the transient to select it was all that was needed. If I tab to the transient, or place the Now time in the vicinity of a transient, it works fine. Thanks!
gswitzPwalPwal, I can't see how this might be touch related (I'm pretty convinced the selected-vs-focused thing had to do with multi-touch context requirements). It seems more about the now time and the fact that you might want to modify a transient without moving the now-time.