Hey Michael
Thank you for taking the time to answer and being patient - sorry about me not educating myself on the topic properly before suggesting things. In the back of my head I kinda suspected you already been through this.

"For growing and shrinking a face selection to its neighbors, you can do that currently by a script, see here:
http://moi3d.com/forum/index.php?webtag=MOI&msg=6988.4"

Didn't know about this one, thanks!

"Hi blindfoldjump, also another reason why I like to have people explain their requests instead of just pick something from a poll, is that often it is already possible to do something that they request like grow/shrink face selection in this particular case."

Gotcha :)