line weight

i am a little confused. When doing my own drawings all is well, however, i am editing someone elses drawing and i am trying to make a line with some weight to it. The drawing is set to 1'-1' in arch units. Usually if i draw a line, highlight, right click and choose .02 for line weight the line gets bigger. Here, nothing. If i go to the max amount in the drop down it gets a tiny bit bigger. I just dont understand this. Since I am editing a drawing all his/her layers are attached. I found one of his thick lines and looked up its layer and the line was set as continuous, default line weight but doesnt appear default in the drawing. I just need to know how to make my line stand out frankly and any other insight would be great.

Also, does anyone know a way that when trying to resize a rectangle (length or width) that the entire rectangle stretches instead of just one side. I always have to drag one side, then go to the other side grip and drag it in hopes to get perpendicular with the previous sides stretch. I wish i could click on one side of rectangle and drag and the rectangle as a whole gets longer instead of just one side of the rectangle. Kinda hard to explain.

For lineweight issue, toggle the LWT icon at the bottom center of the screen

For the rectangle, 2011 added extra grips that do this very thing. For you, select the rectangle, hold down Shift, pick two grips, release shift, pick either grip, stretch. Easier to just use the stretch command most times.

yea i know about the toggle button on bottom. i dont like using other peoples drawings for this reason. i feel like im a detective more than none in trying to figure out how they set their stuff up. quite annoying but better than redrawing everything