Using the saturation control in max produces really odd results, for more information (including lots of pictures), please visit this site:
http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_tools/cg_wishlist/3dsmax/wishlist_saturation_odd.htm

The Composite Material needs an additive mode that doesn't just layer the materials ontop of each other based on opacity, but it actually disregards the opacity and just adds the materials together (including adding the bumps together, additively). This will allow the Composite Material to replace the need for the Shellac Material.

See here for more information:
http://www.neilblevins.com/cg_tools/cg_wishlist/3dsmax/wishlist_composite_mat_additive.htm

When selecting object, selected is always shown in white, and that is annoying and eye intense. Maybe it is not good idea to have option for changing color, but only opacity of white. I think Softimage is having that option.

There is a lock button near the view to render on the render dialog. that doesn't work... if you work in another viewport then its switching automatically.

If max crashes, he creates a error report and send it to autodesk.

IMHO it's a good idea to display information from this error report. So the user has changes to fix the error or go around it.

The 'Auto Edge' tool in Edge mode of an Editable Mesh is one of 3DSMax's hidden gems, but for some reason it didn't make it into Editable Poly. Please add this incredibly useful functionality to Editable Poly and the Edit Poly modifier

The animation preview should hide "group brackets", Shapes, lights, cameras and helpers...

I must manually activate shapes, lights, cameras and helpers checkboxes in "Display" / "Hide by catergory"

...and close all existing groups

"import" and "merge" do essentially the same thing, just for different file formats. There should just be one option, and it should work correctly based on what kind of file you point it at.

Whenever a camera walkthough is performed, any camera roll previously applied to camera is lost. Since the cameras in my scene had already been signed off on and I was merely tweaking them to see if I could achieve a nicer look, I actually had to reset and reload the file thus losing changes I had made in the scene.

While editing a Turbosmoothed object, working on the Editable Poly underneath. Why does it snap to the vertices of the smoothed object? If I'm editing the low-poly, snapping should be to that. I have to turn the Turbosmooth off temporarily to make vertex snap operations.

If you collapse a turbosmooth modifier down while isoline is enabled it creates a broken mesh covered in disconnected verts. Its very difficult and time consuming to fix a mesh where this has happened.

Having isoline enabled should not change the way the collapse function treats a turbosmoothed mesh.

The brush paint tools share one set of brush parameters (size, intensity etc.) but really each tool should have/remember it's own settings. For example, a push/pull might use a fairly small radius but a relax/smooth might use a large radius; when switching between those tools repeatedly, it currently means you have to constantly adjust the radius.

2012, spline creation and zooming is far, will result in dialog box asking: "close splines: Yes No". If clicked No: zooming doesn't work anymore. Why does this dialog appear out of nothing while zooming in spline creation?

Merger command should be in the Open submenu, no in the Import one. It makes no sense the way it is.

The resource collector often does not collect and leaves behind many texture maps. Despite the "collect bitmaps/Photometric Files" box being checked.

For example I use Zbrush with GoZ a lot. When you create displacement and normal maps and GoZ them over they stay in a temporary Zbrush folder until you move them manually.

When I use the resource collector on these scenes it often misses those maps.

There are several ways to render wire frame edges but none of them are very good. It would be nice if there were a simple shader designed to show off the wireframe (and ISOLINE) structure of a model in a clean pretty hiddenline style way without the hassle associated with the methods currently available, which are all essentially work-arounds.

Allow us to set the default path to be used in state sets
like
/renderoutput/{filename}/{statename}/{statename}.png
The filename is critical to prevent states with the same name in different files trashing each other.

It would be useful to have an option to save and automaticly creates a backup file (.max) that include a number that corresponds to the last backup made. It would alow the user to make changes in a xref scene and keep the backups easliy organized.

When making a preview (Tools -> View- Grab Viewport) I always save out previews as image sequences.

It would be great to be able to specify which program to load the preview upon completion i.e FrameCycler, TweakRV, PDPlayer, DJV ect. Or for those who save out video files, allow us to specify which program i.e VLC, GOM Player, MPlayer, KMPlayer ect.

The ability to add command-line flags would allow us to change loading specifics to suit our chosen program.