Heh.. beginning to feel the same way about patch modelling, though I see the benefits, which are great when it comes to animating later as everything is going to deform very sweetly. Also, it will convert to a blissful no problem poly skin with all quads. The object is live, at all times, could you try it just so I can make sure its not a problem with my prefs setup ? Just create a sphere, make live, create a curve on it, then try to manipulate it's points. None of the point moves snap back onto the surface for me.