Help with multiposition hoop

Let me preface by saying my machine is pretty ancient, Brother SE-400 and I need to figure out the trick to get things to align within Hatch when using multipositional hoops. I created a new 3 position hoop in hatch according to the docs I read but I cannot get things to align when stitching out. Most importantly I'm trying to figure out how the manual and center options in the hoop settings affect my machine and design. Not sure if the SE-400 is always trying to center a design but things don't appear to line up. Each PES file has a mind of its own. Do I need a basting stitch or something just inside the sewing field to tell my machine to preserve the position of objects within each PES file? Perhaps I'm not selecting the correct hoop settings. I'm sure someone has run into this and I'm hoping it's an easy fix.

Also, I've seen mention made to limitations with this method wherein the designs should be separate objects and not crossing hoop overlaps but couldn't I just knife an object at the right spot and have things stitch as best as possible?

Thanks