Can files be created with permissions set on the command line?

You could use the install command (part of GNU coreutils) with a dummy file, e.g.

install -b -m 755 /dev/null newfile

The -b option backs up newfile if it already exists. You can use this command to set the owner as well.

touch always creates the file if it doesn't exist, always follows symbolic links, and always makes the file non-executable. You can decide the read and write bits through the umask.

(umask 077; touch file)  # creates a 600 (rw-------) file
(umask 002; touch file)  # creates a 664 (rw-rw-r--) file

“Safe” atomic file creation (in particular, with O_NOFOLLOW) is not possible with traditional shell tools. You can use sysopen in perl. If you have the BSD-inspired mktemp utility, it creates a file atomically with O_NOFOLLOW; you'll have to to call chmod afterwards if the default mode of 600 is not the right one.