Producer 8.5 - weird issue with gain adjustments of mono clips

I encountered what seems like a very strange issue yesterday. I'm in the middle of some very detailed drum chopping/editing, and started bouncing the tracks to single files half-way through to speed things up. I figured since each track is originally mono, I would export them as mono. When I loaded them back in, I noticed that if I silence a portion of a clip (from Process->Audio->Gain..."), it adds a bunch of space to the clip right after the segment I processed. Furthermore, if I extend the edge of the clip (i.e. to crossfade), the clip shifts to the right as I extend the edge of the clip to the left! Needless to say, this is impossible to work with.

I tried exporting the clips in stereo, and behold I don't have these issues. However, it's really hard to keep all of my drum tracks in the viewport at sufficient zoom to check phase alignment. Anyone have any idea what I'm talking about and what I might be able to do to work with mono clips?