I still can't seem to get the sneak-to-place working. I'm on CB1938 and PS823b. Maybe I'm missing something fundamental or there's a conflict. I'm doing /ps off to ensure I'm in non-placement mode (which is also the default when I join), holding shift and trying to place a field and it just places a normal block. I should have all permissions as admin with wildcard (*), using PEX118. Here are my complete settings (with MySQL info redacted):

http://pastebin.com/fmPAWRi8

When I do /ps on, sneak places normal blocks, even though I have that set to false, and non-sneak places active fields (as it should). I turned on debug info and didn't notice any difference while placing in the console or in-game. Also, error.log is 0 bytes.

Can anyone confirm this is working for them?

Yes, for me too

The sneaking code is not working correctly based on the settings given below.
I deleted all of my files and updated to 8.2.3B.
Here are my test results:

Trial 1

sneak-to-place-normal-block: false
sneak-to-place-field: true
off-by-default: true

== standing places a normal block
== sneaking places a normal block

/ps on

== standing places field block
== sneaking places a normal block

Trial 2

sneak-to-place-normal-block: true
sneak-to-place-field: false
off-by-default: true

== standing places a normal block
== sneaking places a normal block

/ps on

== standing places field block
== sneaking places a field block

was backwards, this was fixed