Let $P$łabelpage1 be a set of $n$ points in the plane. We consider a variation of the classical Erdös--Szekeres problem, presenting efficient algorithms with $O(n^3)$ running time and $O(n^2)$ space complexity that compute (1) a subset $S$ of $P$ such that the boundary of the rectilinear convex hull of $S$ has the maximum number of points from $P$, (2) a subset $S$ of $P$ such that the boundary of the rectilinear convex hull of $S$ has the maximum number of points from $P$ and its interior contains no element of $P$, (3) a subset $S$ of $P$ such that the rectilinear convex hull of $S$ has maximum area and its interior contains no element of $P$, and (4) when each point of $P$ is assigned a weight, positive or negative, a subset $S$ of $P$ that maximizes the total weight of the points in the rectilinear convex hull of $S$. We also revisit the problems of computing a maximum area orthoconvex polygon and computing a maximum area staircase polygon, amidst a point set in a rectangular domain. We obtain new and simpler algorithms to solve both problems with the same complexity as in the state of the art.