For a major move like you describe, I would use translate, increment instead. Move to Z has limited application as you have found out.
Move to Z is intended to be a "flattener" as I found out recently. I was sent a dxf, which looked fine in 2d, but in 3d, the stuff was all over the map in Z. Each entity was in some XY plane, but Move to Z flattened it all out nicely into one plane.
The drawing habits of some of these professional draftsmen sure have me scratching my head sometimes. Like, would you just scribble down your answers on an exam and hand it in, or would you at least
check what you have written
once, maybe?
