"I've always just rotated figures with the X,Y,Z rotate dials. You get better control."

Yes I agree if you are planing on working  on and positioning  the figure. 
I use the twist when I want to quickly examine the loaded figure.  Maybe I am lazy but using dials requires seleting  the property window, move to the figure dialogs and locate  "Y axis' "body" dials usually on a seperate part of the property tag then moving the dial with  with a mouse.

If the Figure is already selected, using the 'twist"  tool is easy to find and  only takes one mouse action! (if It works)