In this day of fixed crop ratios and such (which I love), we have lost that. Starting with PSPx6 (in my collection; it may have started in PSPx5), the Crop tool goes to Last Applied. How to choose the Splash image without unintentionally including extraneous material? Turns out there is a way. Go to the Auto Selection tool, and drag it across the center image. It selects only the image. Then go to the Crop tool, and click on Snap crop rectangle to: Current Selection. Bam. The Crop tool is ready to crop the Splash.
True, there are more steps involved. If they felt it was important enough, the devs could look at the old code to see what the old PSP's were doing. After all, this behavior started when Corel bought PSP, and before Biddle was incorporated. So they could do it.
But will they?