I wrote a whole long detailed answer and accidently hit the back button on my mouse and lost it all. So I apologize but this one will be brief, but hopefully succint.
To find the VCB which appears at the bottom right hand side, click on the "maximize" icon at the top right of your working window of SketchUp. ( You may have SketchUp slightly minimize.
To move items successfully do NOT use the move tool by clicking on any old surface of the object. Click on the point you wish to align with another point. Click on endpoints or midpoints to align and snap to other endpoints and midpoints.
To stop SketchUp from wanting to snap to things that are too far away, change your Snapping precision. Window>Model info>Units. Change precison and snapping measures for Length units and angle Units to something much smaller and you will find you won't be forced to snap to some "gross" measure anymore.
Surfaces that have been created on another surface and then moved away are actually still attached. same goes for components. You will only be able to move off these surfaces in the same plane anyway. According to the rules of "sticky" geometry SketchUp should really be distorting the original surface and edges when you move the smaller surface off, but it doesn't because there are just too many 'folds" that it would need to make. Instead SketchUp just knows that the surface is still attached and behaves accordingly. So if you try to move any part of the original surface, the item that you moved off will be affected as well because it is still attached. To properly move a surface or component off of the original surface, after you have moved it off, right click on it and from the context menu, click on "unglue"