I really hope Blender can implement a much simpler system that will replace it's current Grouping, Parenting and Joining of objects. Something like Cinema 4D's Null system would be ideal as it allows you to very easily add or remove children from a parent. It also allows you to easily see and edit each child while it's in the Parented group while still allowing you to use the Parent to move all objects at once.

After reading the WIKI and any information I could find on Parenting,Joining and Grouping I have come to the conclusion that this is one area of Blender that needs to be changed to be more like industry standards. There is no simple way to group, edit and move objects in Blender. It is a very frustrating process that IMO need changing.
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Parenting
I created 4 objects and "Parented" them to an empty named "OBJECTS".

PROS
Now the 4 objects are "Children" of the Empty named "OBJECTS" and I can expand the Parent to see the children and then select and edit the individual children's materials etc.

CONS
Appending doesn't work with Parented objects. You can append if you want to select "Every" object individually. Not reasonable with lots of objects.
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Grouping
I created 4 objects and then "Grouped" them (CTRL + G). I then created an name for the group in the Group Edit Settings.

PROS
Now the 4 objects are part of the Group named "OBJECTS". The objects can be moved individually in the 3D Viewport.
Appending works well. You simply append the group name and all objects will move to the new file.

CONS
The problem with a group is that I cannot move all of the objects as a Group in the 3D Viewport.
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Joining
I created 4 objects and then "Joined" them (CTRL + J). The last object selected becomes the name of the joined objects. Not very good. I selected becomes the parent object and also if you expand the joined objects you can't see the children.

PROS
The joined objects can be easily moved in the 3D Viewport, but the Cons far outweigh any Pros.

CONS
• When joining objects the last object selected becomes the name of the joined objects. Not very good.
• You can't join objects to an "Empty". I created 4 objects and an "Empty" then selected all 4 objects then the Empty but it wouldn't let me "Join" the objects to the "Empty".
• Appending - You can't append joined objects.
• When you separate Joined objects (P Key) they lose their original names. This can be a real problem when you have lots of objects and you don't want to manually rename everything.
• When you separate Joined objects (P Key) they lose their original axis points. This can be a real problem when you have lots of objects and you don't want to manually reset the axis of every object.
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