I think it is a cop-out to essentially say we're too small to fix the problems that have existed for years.  I "drank the Kool-Aid" since Sonar 8, investing hundreds, perhaps thousands largely just to get snap-to back in staff view (which we lost with the X-upgrades).  Why can't you simply fix what you broke?  And lets add insult to injury by making the difference between any Sonar Producer Product and X2 upgrades $50.  For those of us that dished out upgrade $$$ for 8.5 Producer, X1-Producer, X1-Producer Expanded, X2-Producer, that seems simply thoughtless.  Yes, you can argue that I received the benefit of all those upgrades--but the irony is I still don't have snap-to in staff view.  For a singer-songwriter, this is an important tool in addition to the recording and mixing features Sonar offers.
 
 
So if it all the same to you, dear Cakewalk, (my abusive spouse for now two decades) I'll wait until free trial of X3E, when you are confident enough in your product to allow consumers to "try before they buy," because your history says that you will take my love and punch me in the face with it.
 
Additional note:
Interestingly enough, as I was reviewing the new features of X3b, I discovered the following quote regarding Staff View:

As a result, pressing "N" in the Staff View could cause Staff View snap-like tendencies to be disabled. PLEASE NOTE: The Staff View does NOT follow Global Snap settings. Rather, it auto-adjusts to place notes based on the selected Note Duration. (CWBRN-13311, CWBRN-14216)

Well, the problem report CWBRN-14216 was mine, submitted on 1/8/13.  I went back to my X2 Producer, pressed N and voila! My snap-like feature were restored!  Periodically, I have checked on this problem report to see if it was addressed (Clicking on the snap-to/by grid does not restore the snap features in staff view in X2) or a solution suggested.  To this date it has not.  I'm pretty sure I thoroughly reviewed the manual before submitting the problem report, and no one replied at the time "this is not a problem moron, check the manual" or better yet, "just press "N."  I said all that to say this:
 
Understandably, you may not have the staff to fix every complaint and every problem in this wonderfully useful and complex program, but you can ensure that the staff you have in place does what they are supposed to do.  If a loyal customer reports a problem through the proper channels and you know it is a problem, you should communicate the solution to that problem through the proper channels, as much of my frustration with your company could have been alleviated if your people had simply done what they were supposed to do.
 
Looking forward to trial version of X3 to see if the new features suit my needs.
 
Steve
 
 

Subjacent
...and the lasso latching on to more than intended, I seemed to have only selected some events, but I still found it kept dragging other events on the same track line with it or even surrounding

From the Reference Guide:
 
Piano Roll lasso behavior
By default, lasso selecting the top of velocity lines in the Piano Roll's Note pane also automatically
selects the corresponding note events. If you don't want velocity lines to affect note selection, you
can change the behavior by adding a switch to the Windows registry.
1. Click the Start button and select Run.
2. Type regedit and click OK to open the Registry Editor.
3. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cakewalk Music Software\SONAR
Producer\X2.
4. Add a new DWORD value called AllowLassoVelInNotesPane (click Edit > New > DWORD
Value).
5. Double-click the new AllowLassoVelInNotesPane DWORD event to open the Edit DWORD
Value dialog box, then change the value to 0 (0=OFF; 1=ON).
6. Click OK to close the Edit DWORD Value dialog box, then restart SONAR.

brundlefly

Subjacent
...and the lasso latching on to more than intended, I seemed to have only selected some events, but I still found it kept dragging other events on the same track line with it or even surrounding

From the Reference Guide:
 
Piano Roll lasso behavior
By default, lasso selecting the top of velocity lines in the Piano Roll's Note pane also automatically
selects the corresponding note events. If you don't want velocity lines to affect note selection, you
can change the behavior by adding a switch to the Windows registry.
1. Click the Start button and select Run.
2. Type regedit and click OK to open the Registry Editor.
3. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Cakewalk Music Software\SONAR
Producer\X2.
4. Add a new DWORD value called AllowLassoVelInNotesPane (click Edit > New > DWORD
Value).
5. Double-click the new AllowLassoVelInNotesPane DWORD event to open the Edit DWORD
Value dialog box, then change the value to 0 (0=OFF; 1=ON).
6. Click OK to close the Edit DWORD Value dialog box, then restart SONAR.

I was Referring to the track/event view and events, but this information is equally valuable, so I do indeed thank you very much for this useful info
thanks brundlefly