We have all been exposed to this mess. Just create a bunch of menus and menu items (using devel_generate), then add these menus as available for a content type, and finally try to either edit an existing piece of content, or create a new. Switch to the "Menu settings" vertical tab and check the "Provide a menu link" checkbox.

...here's what the "Parent item" and "Weight" drop-down menus look like:


We can do better than that! Here's a couple of Drupal contributed modules that try to address this problem:
https://www.drupal.org/project/menu_select
Replaces Drupal's stock node parent menu item selector with a hierarchal collapsible unordered list. Offers a breadcrumb preview of the menu item's location and an optional autocomplete search.

https://www.drupal.org/project/menuux
...adds a menu browser to the content forms. Users don't choose "parent" and "weight" for the menu item they are adding. Instead they choose a menu, and the menu gets loaded using ajax. The users then places the menu item inside the menu by clicking on the item they want to place the menu below.

https://www.drupal.org/project/menu_link_weight
...replaces the standard numeric weight dropdown widget for menu links in the node form with a tabledrag widget that lists all children for the selected parent.

https://www.drupal.org/project/bettermenus (never realized as an actual module)
Improves the Drupal menu item creation workflow by replacing the standard menu creating widget with a javascript powered tree menu.

Recent comments
I am withdrawing my question for the following reason: https://forum.backdropcms.org/comment/8960#comment-8960
Error when trying to check for updates
My hosting is located in a country that blocks numerous online resources, so I am not surprised that updates and modules are unavailable. However, everything works perfectly on a local server...
Unable to run update - fails with Connection timed out
UPDATE: I fixed the errors that I found in the logs. They were related to deleting an old blog content type pulled over from Drupal that was still referenced in one of the layouts. I updated...
missing "add block" in custom layout