I am a new maya user, coming from blender. In blender, if you remove a critical vertex or line, the program allows you to do so and rebuild the faces as you like. However in maya I keep getting messages that "border edges cannot be deleted" and "Warning: Some selected vertices have complex edge attachment; Delete Edge/Vertex removes selected vertices and related edges // ". Is there a way to stop these protective protocols from being activated so I can remove whatever I want without having to remove the connecting faces and edges individually first?

As a side note how do you use the selection box to only select visible faces, lines and vertices without selecting the ones behind them?