Hi 3dvisuals dude, that is a great idea with the symmetry steps you described.

Unfortunately there isn't currently any way for a script to detect and select symmetrical faces like that yet and it isn't really an easy thing to add. So that will have to be more of a longer range project. I would definitely like to add in a bunch of symmetry stuff in the future.

However, I was able to tune up just the regular extrude so that it handles a multiple selection with different normals better now.

Here's an example - here is an extruded 12 sided polygon, with every other face selected:



With the new tuned up extrude (which will be in the next beta), doing a single extrude will do this now:



Your mouse will track along the normal of the last object that you selected, but the distance that you track along it will be applied to each other selected object along their own normals. If you want them all to go in a common direction you can still do that by using "Set Dir" to define a new direction - once you define a direction by pushing "Set Dir", then each object will no longer extrude along its own normal and instead use the direction you specified.

So hopefully this should streamline your extrusion procedure. You still have to manually select all the faces you want, but you can punch them all out along their own normals with just one extrude step with the next beta.

- Michael