When I look at the compass in S2.0, I see three axis lines and three arcs that can each be moved manually a little or a lot. If I want extra precision, I can type in values in the Info palette for X, Y, Z for horizontal movement and R, P and Y for rotation. That's 0.01 m and 0.1 degree enough precision
I find the yellow highlight quite transparent so it never really bothered me when aligning objects. Perhaps because catenary wire is such a small target, it it harder to align.
I find sometimes lining up two objects in the 3D environment much harder. When two objects look to overlap but don't snap together, it's when I change the point of view that it shows them to be actually far apart.