Doesn't turning on 'Smart Guides' allow you to select the point directly? I use them all the time, because they tell you what you'll select and snap to (point, line, intersection, etc.).

Cmnd + U should turn them on. Although, I admit I use AI 10 at work more than CS at home, so this may not be the solution.

Adobe should have stopped at Illustrator 8.0 and simply add the transparency and the wrap envelope features. Everything else has completely mocked up the program.

At work I still use OS 9.2 with Illustrator 8, at home I have Illustrator 10 only because I have OS X only. I de-installed all CS applications (except InDesign) because they suck.

Sorry, end of rant.

>At work I still use OS 9.2 with Illustrator 8,

Likewise, but I'm a cranky old fart -- it's tragic that upgrade burnout should strike one so young and vigorous as Armin.

Well, I find the glyph pallette in CS indespensible.

Hildebrant.

Just like some people are young at heart, I'm a cranky old fart at heart.

Well bugger me senseless! When I click in the near vicinity of an
anchor point, I want that precize anchor point to be selected and
"magnetized", not the near vicinity. What kind of reasoning went
into that daft decision?!

I have the impression I haven't made myself entirely clear about
what exactly I meant, so please bear with me while I try to explain
it in a better way. From the Illustrator Help File:

When dragging objects, the Snap to Point command helps you
align your cursor with anchor points and guides in the document
window. Snapping occurs when the cursor is within 2 pixels of
the point or guide.
Important: Snapping alignment depends on the position of the
cursor, not the edges of the dragged object.

To snap to anchor points and guides:

1. Choose View > Snap to Point. A check mark indicates that
snapping is turned on.

2. Select the object you want to move.

3. Position your cursor on the exact point you want to align with
anchor points and guides, and hold down the mouse button.
For example, if you want to align the corner point of a rectangle
with a guide, click down exactly on the corner point.

4. Drag the object to the desired location. When your cursor
comes within 2 pixels of an anchor point or guide, it snaps to
the point.
The pointer changes from a filled arrowhead to a hollow arrowhead
when a snap occurs.

Now point 3 is utter bollocks when it comes to text anchor points.
When I want to have the anchor point of the text snapping to an
anchor point of an object, I click the text object anchor point,
drag it till it snaps to that anchor point. One would assume that
both text anchor point and "snap-to point" are then positioned
perfectly on top of each other. BUT when I enlarge it appears
that this is never the case, even if I try at 6400%!

If I try it the other way round and drag an object by its anchor
towards the anchor point of the independent text object, it does
not snap. So this means text anchor points have completely lost
their "magnetic" abilities! For what reason? It worked fine and it
was a really helpful feature.

I did some reading on this in Adobe's forums.
Other people are pretty upset about it too and
it doesn't seem like there is much of a fix yet.

The way it works is that the arbitrary place in
which you click your cursor inside an object is
the spot that snaps to guides, not the outside
bounds of the object itself. So, short of
grabbing as close to the edge of an object or
text unit as you can, there isn't much you can
do with Snap to Guides.

Try turning on the Snap to Grid. That is the only
way I could get what you are attempting to work.