Bar repeats copy?

If I select a few bars with the new bar selection thing, bar repeats look like they’re selected (they go orange) but do not copy?

You’d have to have the whole event selected to copy them, i.e. the handle at the start and/or end: you can’t copy part of a range of bar repeats.

The bar repeats were the middle two bars of four bars, selected with the bar selector. Should that have pasted them?

No, because that’s not the whole of the region: you have to select at least the start or end handle, and that will copy the whole four bar region. It’s not possible to copy the middle two bars. But it’s very quick to make a new one: select the two bars, Shift+R, %, Return.