Oh well...
1) Is there a way to refine the conditions that drive the behavior of Back and Forward?
No. Maybe (just maybe) it takes into consideration what you were doing at that location (even if you done nothing, then maybe how long the pause was). But mainly it looks at editing activity, navigation events (jump to declaration/implementation etc).
2) Is a regexp (or something else) able to refine the behavior of the indentor, Not only for this very specific case but for the behavior in general?
RegEx -- definitely no. This question is not clear for me anyway -- are you talking about formatting or navigation? If first -- then all currently existing settings are in "Settings | Code Style". If second -- then check "Settings | Editor | Smart keys" -- maybe they will help.
Otherwise -- please record some screencast/bunch of screenshots for current and desired behaviour and submit it as a new ticket to the Issue Tracker: http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issues/WI
3) Is there a regexp or similar to control the quoting behavior?
No. You explanation is not clear enough. I suggest the same as for #2 -- get a code example and submit it as a new ticket to the Issue Tracker: http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issues/WI . This way it may gets implemented/fixed for next version
4) not sure there is a way to configure that though - just in case there is?
Don't know. I'm also facing this usability issue and would like to know workaround. The way I'm using it -- pressing "Home" before (or during/after) making the selection (not ideal "solution" as it is still annoying to do so, but works). Alternatively you can use mouse to select the lines (use it over editor gutter area -- where the line numbers are).
If selection is to just delete/duplicate the line -- then there are shortcuts just for that.