Q:

Input Aliases in Mathematica 10

Bug introduced in 10.0.0 and persisting through 12.0. 

In Mathematica 9, typing in an input alias such as intt would result in the keyboard cursor automatically positioned within the first SelectionPlaceholder and ready to type inside it.  However, in Mathematica 10 when I type it the keyboard cursor is placed to the side of the selection placeholder. 
Is anyone else experiencing this?  In MMA10, how do you go creating a placeholder so that when you type the alias the keyboard cursor is already positioned within the first box? 
Issue still exists in 11.1.1, similar the same bug confirmed by WRI causes InputAliases and SelectionPlaceholder issue in V10.  So user defined aliases are affected too:
CreateDocument[{}, 
 InputAliases -> {"[" -> RowBox[{"〚", "\[SelectionPlaceholder]", "〛"}]}
]

Already emailed wolfram several months ago but nothing other than the standard "we'll look into it." 

A:

Just to give everyone an update on this. 
Yes, this is a real bug.   We identified the cause some time ago (certainly before 11 shipped).   We are still working on a solution which doesn't break other things.   I have been pestering the relevant folk from time to time as it annoys me too, though we are all in agreement that this is a significant issue worthy of attention.   It's just not the sort of "erase user's harddrive" level of bug which will automatically jump ahead of all other development work. 
Sorry.   I will update this answer once it is fixed.