Session Drummer 3 questions

Sorry, repeat question, but I decided to start anew after Victoria's thread degenerated into chaos.
 
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In my pre-Sonar days, I used a Roland drumbox (not very natural-sounding, but relatively quick)
 
In Sonar, so far I either recorded drummers live or I used my own personal drum sample sets in my Akai Z8 sampler (8 outs to mixer) and triggered that over MIDI, programmed as notes using the PRV pencil. Slow work!
 
I decided this weekend to move it all to Sonar only, using SD3, but with not much success. Unfortunately, the help for SD3 does not discuss how to use it in conjunction with Sonar.
 
Q1:
I first tried to use SD3's built-in step sequencer. I am familiar with this kind of interface. It works, but the result on the PRV was frozen; i.e. I wasn't able to subsequently move or resize the notes. Yet if I performed an undo and then put the notes on the PRV manually using the pencil, I WAS able to edit the notes!
 
Is this a known issue? Was I doing something wrong?
 
Q2:
Next I decided to set my own drum sound set in SD3.
 
The SD3 interface only allows a fixed selection of note numbers per drum; and you can only choose one at a time (right-click on instrument, select one variant only). So putting a snare sample, snare sidestick sample and a snare roll sample all on the one snare wasn't possible.
 
I thought of allocating some samples to the little pad, but I realized doing the same for the high-hat (open, half-open, edge+sticktip, edge+stickside, top, ...), would mean I'll run out of pads quick.
 
Is that really how SD3 is meant to be used?
 
Q3:
I intend to EQ each drum, and I read somewhere something about templates, so I looked but only found SD2 templates. I tried some but all the sounds come out of one "track" only.
 
Where are the templates for SD3?
 
(I found and read up on the drum maps and I think I understand that. But that seems only to handle the MIDI side.)
 
 
The way I'm doing it, SD3 is not helping. On the contrary, it limits me. Either it's meant for very simple setups or I just haven't understood it.
 
I was thinking of ditching SD3 altogether and try recreate my Akai Z8 setup using DimPro (I have a full license). But this may lead to other dead ends, so I'm reluctant now to continue without asking you more experienced users for some help.
 
Q4:
Is there a guideline somewhere on the Sonar DVDs to get me going in the right direction?
 
(I have a dialup internet connection and YouTube is blocked here, so online videos are no good for me.)