If you select the Place Cell tool from the ribbon, then immediately select Move Element, the tool settings window will display the Construct Array tool settings.
Selecting Place Cell, then immediately selecting almost any other tool in the Manipulate group gives the same results.
This operation seems quite unusual but I cannot replicate what you've described here. If you have a customized workspace it might be worth checking the same workflow using the No Workplace / No Workset option to see if it can be replicated. You might like to try the following option to reset your User Preference File (UPF) and clean out any temp files.
How To Reset User Preferences and Delete MicroStation's Temporary Files
It may also be helpful to supply a MicroStation Debug so we can ascertain whether there may be something else affecting this operation.
How to Quickly Generate a Debug File
RegardsAndrew BellTechnical SupportBentley Systems