World, object or camera space shouldn't matter. Bryce copies what's on the attributes menu at the time. World, object and camera space only effect how the tools translate the object, which is then displayed on the attributes menu. As far as I know the "Absolute Coordinates" Definition Coordinates and such are one time shots, that is after you define them, the options falls back to Absolute when the attributes menu is closed. Not sure if locking would have anything to do with it.

Stephen Ray