No, I mean scaling and rotating operation for multiple selected vertices in edit mesh mode at texture coordinates (with unchecked Deformed option). It isn't about animation mode, but I suppose that scaling and rotating selected group of vertices will be handy in this mode too.
I.e. look at Photoshop drop down menu Edit/Transform
it suggests a bunch of options: Scale, Rotate, Skew etc., not just Move. For the selected group of vertices you can use Unity/3DMax approach when every tool (Move, Skew etc) must be selected or Photoshop approach when different operation applied by selecting different handlers of group bounding box.