I just tried to enter hairpins under a slur but trying to select the notes where I wanted the hairpin also selected the slur, and the hairpin subsequently got placed under the beginning of the slur and not where I wanted it. I ended up deleting the slur, adding the hairpins and then re-entering the slur. It wasn’t until later that I discovered that this problem only occurred with notes close to the slur and that, for those notes, I have to click on the stem to be able to select the note without selecting the slur as well. Is this normal? If so, why does Dorico give preference to a selected slur above a selected note when entering hairpins?
I think it was mentioned that the “hot spot” of items is a little “wide” atm, but that it will be “corrected” soon.
On a side note: Just discovered that one can enter hairpins without invoking the dynamics popover, just select the notes and hit < or > … like with slurs 
Yes the click area problem is mentioned here, with a possible work around: unable to select some elements in engrave mode - Dorico - Steinberg Forums
This will be fixed in the next update.