Garret

Layer > Geometry > Add works for some individual shapes but what if I have hundreds of shapes? And it never works for simple lines, what to do then?

Layer > Geometry > Add works for some individual shapes but what if I have hundreds of shapes? And it never works for simple lines, what to do then?

It would be much easier if the 'Cycle selection box' could be permanently selected!

Either I'm not understanding what you wrote, or it's not really working that way. But as I recall, the workarounds were to permanently change the orientation of the selection box, e.g., so one could rotate an object or flip the object, and then convert it to a Text Frame where the text was not rotated or flipped.
Here's a rotated rectangle, where the selection box is the Base Box:

Here it is with the selection box cycled to Regular Bounds:

If I click outside the object, and then click on the object again,  the selection box has been reset to Base Box:

Thus, it is not a permanent reset.
And more importantly (for me) if that rotated rectangle is converted to a Text Frame the text inside it is rotated, too.
Have I misunderstood something?