Shape annoyances.... don't know if there's any help...

Question

I have Illustrator CS5...
One... I am under the impression that the "Reshape Tool" doesn't do anything. I created a star shape, selected the reshape tool, clicked on an anchor point to select it, and start dragging the anchor point, but the whole shape just moves as if I were using the Selection Tool
Two... what happened to the "Twist Tool". The tutorials I find list that tool in older versions, but now it's gone (was in the rotate tool's group), I'm stuck using the Twist Effect, but Illustrator has this weird habit of using the old version of the shape as the control point! i.e. if I use the "Twist Effect" on a Star shape, it makes the cool "Ninja Star", but all the Anchor points and adjustments have to be done on the old star shape which floats at a different angle, making it really confusing to know what effect a new tool will have and kind of affecting any accuracy I can have with an anchor point since the shape I'm changing floats many degrees off of the anchor point. I don't know why New anchor points aren't created on the new shape's path!
Three... Isn't there a way to Twist a star's inner radius so that it creates straight angles, instead of curves (like Twist does)? I thought I saw a tutorial on this once where you had complete control of every aspect of a star... but that could be for Photoshop or After Effects, so not sure if you can do that with Illustrator. I'm trying to create a Ninja Star-like shape.
Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

When you select an anchorPoint of an open path with the Reshape Tool and drag it, the anchorPoint moves as you would expect. But the other anchorPoints also move--not as much as the one you are dragging, but progressively less as their distance in order along the path increases from the point you are dragging. So each anchorPoint sequentially distant from the one you are moving is affected less and less, until the one farthest away is not affected at all.
This is useful for smoothly and progressively "stretching" and "compressing" complicated open paths from any point along their length in one move, without having to tediously manipulate all the anchorPoints individually. Pressing Alt creates a reshaped duplicate, leaving the original behind. This is often useful if one takes the time to explore it.
It is very similar to Elastic Mode of Corel Draw's Shape Tool, which is actually better because of a subtle difference that enables you to do more natural "compression" toward one end or the other by dragging from any point along the middle.
And spirals, by the way, are not uncommon in my work (springs, coils, fastener threads...).
JET