OK, the videos are helpful, thanks. (Although -- vimeo positions its playback bar right over the mouse and key icons -- so it's a little difficult to read.)
Maybe some of the interface has changed? Fan-in and full connect are shown in the first video (0:30) without using any modifier keys, but I found that they need shift.
It helps to get in the habit of not making massive triggers with 32 bangs
I've never done this. I would push things down into subpatches long before reaching that point.
also ordering your patch to reflect the trigger will make the intelligent patching easier and more predictable, the object the first outlet goes to is right beneath that outlet and the object the second outlet goes to is beneath it and so on
I would guess that I'm more fastidious than most about lining up connections. Patchers are already less readable than code -- arranging them poorly makes them impossible to work with.
Related to that point about ordering the objects: Why does ctrl-t connect the rightmost outlet to the leftmost inlet? Can't think of even one time I would have wanted this.
hjh