There is a way you can get around the problem. You might have to make some compromise with foundation height and this will only work if your first floor walls are small or medium but .... make a basement under where you want the column making it 2x2 so the column can sit inside the centre of the room and not touch walls. Make sure the basement walls are the tallest so when you put the column in there it is also the tallest column. With bb.moveobjects turned on, lift the column (9 key) up until it reaches the ceiling on the floor above. You might have to do a bit of trial and error and you might have to lower your foundation a little but it is doable with a bit of fiddling.
But you're right, they need to improve the behaviour of columns or at the very least have it so they snap to each point (half points as well as corners) on the one square line as well as the centre of the square. There was a time holding the alt key enabled you to move columns as freely as any object. :)