Regarding your first problem, why should the z-values be a problem when putting them into a QGraphicsGroup?
On the other hand you could also iterate through the selected items and just apply the transformation.
I guess this snippet will solve your 2nd problem:
QGraphicsView view;
QGraphicsScene scene;
QPointF itemPosToRotate(-35,-35);
QPointF pivotPoint(25,25);
QGraphicsEllipseItem *pivotCircle = scene.addEllipse(-2.5,-2.5,5,5);
pivotCircle->setPos(pivotPoint);
QGraphicsRectItem *rect = scene.addRect(-5,-5,10,10);
rect->setPos(itemPosToRotate);
// draw some coordinate frame lines
scene.addLine(-100,0,100,0);
scene.addLine(0,100,0,-100);
// do half-cicle rotation
for(int j=0;j<=5;j++)
for(int i=1;i<=20;i++) {
rect = scene.addRect(-5,-5,10,10);
rect->setPos(itemPosToRotate);
QPointF itemCenter = rect->pos();
QPointF pivot = pivotCircle->pos() - itemCenter;
// your local rotation
rect->setRotation(45);
// your rotation around the pivot
rect->setTransform(QTransform().translate(pivot.x(), pivot.y()).rotate(180.0 * (qreal)i/20.0).translate(-pivot.x(),-pivot.y()),true);
}
view.setScene(&scene);
view.setTransform(view.transform().scale(2,2));
view.show();
EDIT:
In case you meant to rotate around the global coordinate frame origin change the rotations to:
rect->setTransform(QTransform().translate(-itemCenter.x(), -itemCenter.y()).rotate(360.0 * (qreal)j/5.0).translate(itemCenter.x(),itemCenter.y()) );
rect->setTransform(QTransform().translate(pivot.x(), pivot.y()).rotate(180.0 * (qreal)i/20.0).translate(-pivot.x(),-pivot.y()),true);