Extended partition graphical clarification

I hope this isn't a case of, "some users are too stupid to use this product," but I apparently am that stupid. I had three primary partitions and an extended partition with some more partitions within followed by unpartitioned space. It looks like this:

<sda1><sda2><sda3><sda5><sda6><sda7><sda8><sda9><unpartitioned>

Genius me tried to grow sda9, but couldn't, then I tried to format the unpartitioned space, but it said that that I was out of primary partitions. Had I looked at the text, I would have realized that the real story was:

<sda1(P)><sda2(P)><sda3(P)><sda4(E)><unpartitioned> or maybe better stated:

[<sda1>][<sda2>][<sda3>][<sda5><sda6><sda7><sda8><sda9>]<unpartitioned>

Graphically, it was not clear to me that I should be manipulating the light blue container, <sda4> instead of <sda9>, right next to the unpartitioned space.

The answer might be, get a smarter user, but as this is a graphical program, can I propose something like:

o Put a bit more space between sda5 and sda9 and the bordering container sda4 and have sda5, sda6, sda7, sda8, sda9 disappear when the mouse falls in the sda4 container space to show that you are dealing with sda4, or

o Have grab handles for sda4 to the left of sda5 and to the right of sda9 when one selects sda5 or sda9, or

o When sda4 is collapsed in the text portion, could sda5-sda9 be greyed out (or light-blued out) within the graphical representation of sda4, or

o Instead of saying, You are out of primary partitions, could it remind me to consider expanding sda4, since it (and not sda9) is right next to the unpartitioned space? (That is, as a graphical user, I just want more space in sda9. It does not really concern me to know that I am really growing sda4 a bit to get that extra space.)

I write this as someone who has used text partitioning aids as well as gparted over the years. I should have had enough experience to immediately know what was the problem, but I wonder if my experience could be used for the benefit of someone new to partitioning or new to the arcane rules of PC BIOSes. Thank you for your consideration.