[ORD Any version] Workspace Issues - Legacy MicroStation Settings

We have a WIP Workspace that is currently in limbo due to COVID-19 budgetary impacts. It originated as our Ss4 workspace and was migrated with Chuck Lawson's assistance as part of our DOT Amp process. During the migration process, we tested using as many of our legacy settings as possible with the hope that migrating a project from our Ss4 workspace to CONNECT would be as painless as possible. We did see a number of issues that were troubling, but they did not seem insurmountable. 

Recent posts in this newsgroup have made me want to revisit those concerns. Here are some of the issues we found:

• The DGN Preview files, used by the Annotation Group Manager are defined using a different resolution than our legacy files. We have been using 1000 per US Survey Foot. The preview DGN files use 10000 per US Survey Feet. This effects the preview graphics causing them to be scaled 10 times too big. With Chuck's help, we created replacement files but although they allowed us to setup our annotion needs, it was not 100% without issues. For example, many of the distances in the preview windows for annotating arcs spirals and lines were off by the factor of ten. The resulting annotations the tools created had correct values, so we accepted this as tolerable. However, every upgrade of the software requires us to replace those preview DGN files on every PC once the update is finished. This is just one extra step that requires Admin privileges to accomplish. And, if we have consultants working for more than one client, this complicates things for them in ways that we feel are unacceptable. 
  • I tried a different approach on how to modify the preview DGN files:
    1. Set the resolution to match our seed files
    2. Use the transform geometry tool to scale the graphics by 0.1
    3. For files with profiles, this appears to require two transform operations - one for the plan graphics and one for the profile. The profile was visible during the plan transform and appeared to scale, but the indicators of the plan geometry (linear, spiral & arc colors and cardinal lines, indicated the profile was still 10 times too large. The second transform while the profile model was active restored the appearances. Still trying to work out the proper settings for getting the profile annotation groups to display.
• A quick test of taking one of our seed files and making it match the resolution of the preview corrected the preview issues, but basically broke all of our annotations as the text was now 10 times to big.
• Our Text Styles are defined in decimal inches, mimicking the traditional Leroy/Kroy Lettering guides. This was possible due to the units, sheet sizes & scales.def files we have been using since migrating to V8. Files that originate outside of our agency often exhibit issues related to this.One of these is annotation scale - the drawing scale will report as custom since their scale definition does not line up with ours. We are very concerned with the impact to our users and existing projects if we have to change this.

Has anyone else found that they had to make impactful changes to their default settings and how has that impacted ongoing projects.