For months, I thought I was mis-remembering that there actually was time when scaling vs. rotating in Illustrator corresponded with your intent. I thought I was mistaken in thinking there was some change. Now I see that other people have experienced different levels of control (or lack of control) over these functions. I was using a 4K screen for 2+ years, with whatever sensitivity I was accustomed to, then at one point in 2020, boxes were always rotating instead of scaling unless magnification was high. Also I think I noticed the rotation option is not active at certain magnifications, too. Now I expend extra effort to do the same work, as I'm always zooming in and out just to resize shapes and see the effect. This issue with resize and rotate happened without me changing any screen settings, so I attribute to application updates in mid- late 2020- perhaps?? and seems to continue with 2021 (25.1.0), using 4K screen or QHD screen from what I have seen so far.

Same with resizing, when grabbing one of the edges it starts to rotate object instead resizing it. Sometimes reselecting object helps, sometimes helps zooming in or out, too random.

Every time I draw a shape and try to scale it using the corner boxes or the midsection boxes it starts to rotate the object instead of transforming them.

Same issue working on Cintiq Pro 16 (4k screen), Win 10. Transformation handles mismatch with the behaviour -- transform handles show you're about to scale, click and drag and you find you're rotating instead.

Did this ever get solved for you?

Curious what screen resolution you're working at? I don't recall having this issue until I got a 4k laptop, so curious if it's a scaling issues.

I can not believe that adobe has not fixed this issue. How about not touching tools that work well Adobe? The arrow selection is incredible in accurate NOWW. Selection tolerance changes in the preferences seem to do nothing to fix this.

Do the people whom work on updating Illustrator and Photoshop actually make a serious living creating with these tools?

Never seems like it - as these quirky changes slow down actual professionals.
This thread is from 18 and no fix/reply from Adobe?

Hello Rama, I recorded this issue the best way I could. Unfortunately in the video you can't see the cursor in Illustrator, because when I clicked, the cursor showed the two way arrows (the one that is for scaling), but every time I clicked and dragged (for resizing), it rotated. After I zoomed in, I could change the shape the way I wanted. As you can see, it's very frustrating that the action is not responding the way I want. This started happening in the later versions of illustrator. Before it was perfect the work flow between resizing, rotating and moving objects around.

I agree, Illustrator has become incredible ******** regarding this issue. My solution at the moment is to exaggeratedly zoom in to be able to select accurately the object I want to edit. Hope they fix this.

I've had to learn to select some distance away or with many nodes, select below by a few pixels.

With every update, the selecting tool gets more retarded. As soon as I try to move an object around, it just rotates or scales it, instead of just simply moving it where I want. I'm working quite fast (many times copying and dragging objects with ALT key), and having to waste time by exaggeratedly zooming in just to be able to move an object is annoying. This didn't happen before. Something similar happens when selecting text to edit it (for example, for fixing the text or continue writing on that box), it will just create a new text box on top of the existing one, and again, you have to zoom in, make it big enough on the screen, and just then, it will be easy enough to select and put the cursor in the space you want to edit.

When using the selection tool to select and move an object, it will select and rotate instead. Moving an object only seems possible via directional keys.

I've run into the same issue. No idea what's causing it, but it's incredibly frustrating.

The selection accuracy of both the arrow tools and the text tools is not very accurate and hence quite annoying now. Illustrator 2017 didn't have this issue. I can clearly see that I'm clicking on the intended object, but illustrator selects the object next to it. It is as if clicking on the object with a "fat finger". The same thing happens with the text selection tool.

As a technical illustrator, I like to keep the accuracy of selection to a fine level.

To work around this issue I have to zoom in more than expected. I have adjusted the selection tolerance several times, but I keep experiencing the same error/annoyance.

Question: Could it be that the Retina 5k display has something to do with this issue?

Computer: iMac Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017
Illustrator 2018: Adobe Illustrator CC 2018 22.1.0

Three images attached:
1) tried to select a line and the dot to the left was selected
2) tried to select the text and the circle around the text was converted to text on a path
3) tried to select the text and the dimension line was converted to text on a path

In all cases the cursor is clearly not on the wrong object. During selection was zoomed in to 200% on a drawing which is drawn to HALF scale.