Older versions of DW used what Adobe called APDivs and AP Elements (AP for Absolute Position). In the years between those versions and today, Absolute Positioning fell out of use as a layout method because, in its default form, Absolute Positioned elements are essentially the opposite of "responsive". Given the vast array of device sizes that viewers use on the internet currently, AP elements really don't provide a good experience for anyone but the small handful of viewers using the exact same screen size as the developer of the site.
Because of that, the DW development team had removed the buttons from the interface years ago. However, the underlying code the options created is still treated the same way as it was in Design View. When position:absolute is added to the css of a given element, DW gives the same resize and drag capabilities as it did back then.