In my random 1.6 adventures, I just discovered what the new 'Prepare content' flag in custom HTML modules is for. When switched on, it allows you to use plugin syntax {pluginname}stuff{/pluginname} in custom modules. Wheeee!

Looks like this makes the HTML module behave like an article with respect to plugins, is that it?

yes, if you tick the 'prepare content' box

Also in J1.6 there no longer exists a 'move' content or menu items function.

Shame because this makes re-organising your content extremely tedious, as you have to edit each item and re-save. I always thought it was a major plus point that Joomla had this function. Great selling point to clients.

Apparently they want to develop a way to move that works for all components, so dont expect one any time soon.

Apparently they removed the 'move' feature because they want to first make it work across all components, not just articles and menus. This is also why they cant bring the feature back - re-engineering required first.

On the same note, trash manager has been made universal. So if you're in article mgr or menu mgr and cant see or empty the trash, note that in the list selects/dropdowns the 'state' field now includes 'Trash'. Selecting this is the ONLY way to see your trash and permanently delete it.

This begs an old question for me:
On the menu lists, why cant we select to see for 'all' menus instead of just one? This would help enormously with debugging, deduping and especially with de-duping alias. J1.6 prevents you from adding a menu item with a duplicate alias, so finding the existing trashed entry with the clashing alias is just one thing that would be easier if you could see all.

There are some menu anomalies (Why do we need the rebuild button? why doesn't ordering work?) that are giving a bit of trouble in J1.6

mini Grrr

Oops, I see you can also link to menu trash for a single menu from the menu manager list of menus.

Also from menu manager if you right-mouse-click to open the menu module and open in a new tab (instead of modal box), it still displays without the admin panel and toolbars, and the 'cancel' button doesn't work.

Also I'd be a bit wary of 'rebuilding' your menus, since it re-orders your menu entries and they get quite stubborn then and refuse to be moved back.