Add Object as an Instancing option on Empties
I don't understand why an Empty can instance a collection - a type that is really complicated to set an origin point for - but cannot simply instance a regular object.
Working with linked duplicates (sharing the same mesh data between objects) has restrictions on applying transforms when the mesh data is used by multiple objects. Allowing an Empty to instance an object would probably avoid that restriction.
It is an extra annoying step to add a single object to its own collection just so you can instance it on an Empty. You might not have the object at [0,0,0] and don't want to move it but need the origin point of the collection to match the origin point of the object and there's so much clicking needed to do that.
3 Comments
It's been a while, but didn't Blender have this capability before 2.8 introduced collections? I seem to recall instancing objects to the scene before collections were even a thing.. but my memory is fuzzy
The old instancing system required a parent object and child objects. The children would be instanced to the verts or faces of the parent. youtube.com/watch
Also "collections" seem to be no different from what was oddly called "groups" before 2.8 and that's probably what you were thinking of.