Resize object by pixels

[gluepack]

Please tell me that I am missing something simple.

With an object selected and the scale option (grrr I wish it would always come up with scale, as opposed to perspective), there is nowhere that tells me the size of the object. So, in other words, if it were 100 pixels wide, I want to see that somewhere and, when I grab the right center handle and move it left, it would show it reducing until I stop moving it.
Why, on the Pick tool, does it have pivot, position, scale (why doesn't it show that reducing as I move?), perspective, shear, angle and not size?

[flagpole]

I don't know why it doesn't always default to scale. I can confirm it is pretty annoying when it decides it wants to perspective for a moment.

But doesn't it say in the bottom right what size it is?

[Lorelle]

Has anyone resolved the issue of why the pointer defaults to shear? It is more than annoying. A total time waster. It is didn't do that in previous versions. Not upgrading until I'm sure there is a patch or fix to this as it is starting to be enough of a time waster along with a few other buggy things to finally make me consider alternatives after over twenty years.