Anderton
You don't want the Pro Tools way; it's not really stereo. It just considers stereo as two mono signals, which is baked deep into the PT code so I don't see that changing any time soon. While it's fine for set-and-forget applications, if you make changes to the panning, or consider a mix as a performance, it's a PITA to deal with two controls that do essentially the same thing to two mono signals.
 
The other consideration for a Sonar-specific implementation is what happens with Track View - two strips? Ugh.
 
What really needs to happen is applying two different parameters, width and position, to a single stereo signal. Consider the following.
 

 
The gray bar is the panpot range. The blue bar represents width, which you would slide within the panpot range. This concept would work for Console or Track view. The pan % would indicate the bar's center in the stereo field (I didn't take the time to change them, sorry).
 
The gestures could done a several different ways, but my preferred implementation would be click in the panpot and drag up/down to set width, then click and drag left/right to set position in the stereo field.
 
The downside is that if you wanted to automate width and not just pan, you'd need another automation parameter. But this opens up multiple creative possibilities.
 
If you didn't want to use a linear panpot but instead use a knob, then a "pie slice" representing width could be superimposed on the panpot knob, and you could move the "slice" left or right in the stereo field by moving the panpot.
 
This protocol has multiple advantages over the dual mono panpots:
 
1. Single control takes up less space.
2. Once you set the right width, you don't have to re-adjust it if you change the position.
3. You can "think" in stereo instead of dual mono.
4. More intuitive visual display. Very easy to visualize the position and width in the soundstage.
5. Much better than Pro Tools. 
 
 
 
 

Oh, this is nice And now we wait...

Anderton
What really needs to happen is applying two different parameters, width and position, to a single stereo signal. Consider the following.
 

 
The gray bar is the panpot range. The blue bar represents width, which you would slide within the panpot range. This concept would work for Console or Track view. The pan % would indicate the bar's center in the stereo field (I didn't take the time to change them, sorry).
 

Oh, yes please. We just recently had a similar stereo pan pot feature request where I suggested to go for width and position instead ... wasn't aware this is so nicely thought through already.
 
I definitely vote for this as this would require WAVES S1 only for special cases but most stereo tracks I could simply tackle with this feature.

nice idea

Most definitely - position and width in one control.   C'mon, Craig, time to pull some of those magic strings...  you know we they you want it...   
 

I just noticed my original post was edited by Alex. I wonder why? 

The stereo vs. mono and how it all affects things still confuses the frackballs out of me so yeah... I'm into this and I've kind of wondered why we needed something like Channel Tools to manipulate signals in this manner.
 
A left right blending type set up works much better in my primitive mind but I'd also like to keep the current option if it represents the true nature of traditional stereo pan (but based on this thread I'm not so sure it does... or perhaps it is a more intricate/philisophical debate that I am not aware of).
 
I'm kind of thinking that we should have options for each track that allow us the current approach, sharkes approach and other varitaions that I'm too dull to comprehend the implications of (yet) and that way the user can choose which works best for them and at which stage/times.
 
It could be an option to set across all tracks from the CV or Global menus and on a track by track basis by way of some dropdown/button/sub menu/etc. Since my understanding is limited I can say whether have mutliple options active at once would be worthwhile (I guess maybe it would be like having two instances of Channel Tools in the bin or fiddling with one instance of Channel Tools in conjunction with the standard track pan... IDK)... but I like options. Again I think CT was added as an option to cover limitations so removing those limitations outright would be preferable (but still have CT because it's cool and useful anyway).
 
The other thing that this makes me think of is it might be nice to be able to have input options for these left/right channels so we can take the signals being pumped into either side from anywhere we want. Like track, synth, effect, send, etc outputs. Or maybe send from a bus back into a track through these options (that could be pretty wacky).
 
I may be a little crazy today and rambling but, sharke... this was a good post and good suggestion with good followups. Sorry I am not smart enough to fully understand it but it has lit up my imagination and now I think I may even try doing some of this crap on my own with what I've already got. It would be a heck of a lot easier/more intuitive with a seriously expanded pan module on each track. Would probably kick the tar out of all the other DAWs if some development occured in this area as well and I doubt it would be that hard. Just simple routing really.
 
Cheers.

bumped ... because this is probably more useful than requesting Channel Tools to be made into a ProChannel module