Is there a way to configure the IDE to turn off tab stops (so that backspace deletes only 1 space at a time), while preserving "Insert spaces for tab"? That is, when I press "Tab", I want to insert 2 spaces, but when I press "Backspace", I want to delete only 1.
Yes, the action you describe occurs on my machine when I go to "Tools> Global Options> Code> Editing> 'insert spaces for tab'" and then set the tab size to 2.