Degrafa transforms are super useful, but I tend to use them to align multiple Path components after I have the origin of each individual Path correctly set.

This by itself may not be the answer, as it can often apply transforms to the paths (which could also be translated to Degrafa transforms, but you may not want that). So another useful approach is to then select the group with the transform applied and choose Object->UnGroup thereby transforming the path coordinates themselves.

There are a lot of shortcuts once you get to know both Inkscape and Degrafa, it’s great that you’re taking the time to show them. It’s also handy to use the Edit->XML Editor in-built editor for browsing the xml tree, and extracting bits and pieces rather than having to open up the svg content in a separate xml editor for example.