No, it doesn't happen in 1.12.2. I actually went back to 1.12.2 because this bug makes playing with redstone contraptions unbearable.
Okay, yeah I went to the nether and started mining glowstone. I get a lag spike each time one breaks or is placed. I'm pretty confident it's the lighting updates.
You could probably use something like mineatlas.com to get your seed from the level.dat file. If you can remember where it was.
This isn't a bug. You need to shift click the side of the first chest when placing the second to make a double chest. This allows the placement of chests next to each other (no more chest/trapped/chest set up).
I just tried this again in pre6 (redstone_lamp_13pre6.gif). There's an improvement, but the issue is still definitely there.