Freezing partion layout exactly in Cyclone III (not LS)

Yes, the Altera documentation is particularly impenetrable, even by Altera standards. This was clear.

One other thing I learned. At least in the versions I tried, you cannot turn on both incremental compilation and rapid compile. In 9.1 it simply aborts with no good reason. In later versions you get a "don't do that" popup, probably a patch for the abort. Just stick with the incremental compile.