I'm another new, and very enthusiastic user! I'd like to to register a very strong +1 for groups. In fact, not having groups is a pretty serious problem for me. I've read how to get group-like behavior with Object Names, but it doesn't do the trick for this case:

In the piece I'm working on, I need to be able to create a large number of objects, and then duplicate them 5x in a circular array. MOI is great at this, but there's a huge workflow problem: I can select all the original objects to be duplicated and give them the same Name. But after duplication ALL the duplicates will have that name too. Very often, I'll want to make these duplicates and look at the result. If I find a problem, I need to be able to quickly delete the duplicates and edit the original objects. Right now, I'm doing this with Undo, but what if I decide I need to do this next week! I would have to manually select all 5xN duplicate objects, then delete them. Box-selection can help, but it often misses objects or selects undesired ones.

So please Michael, make Groups a priority if you can! :-)

I would recommend that the functionality for this feature be like that in many other CAD/drawing programs:
1) Once grouped, clicking on an object shows a box around the entire group.
2) Double-click a group to edit inside the group.
3) Provide an Un-Group command.
4) Allow nested groups.
5) Provide an option that controls whether or not to hide the all objects outside a group while the group is edited.

Lastly, though it would be very nice to have what Sketchup calls "components" and others call "instancing", and though this is closely related to groups, I would strongly recommend getting Groups done and released ASAP, and let "instancing" wait. It will have some complicated UI issues to solve. Please don't let it hold up Groups!

Thanks!
Christopher