Hi, so I know Kontakt 5 can do the multi out thing where you can have however many instruments loaded into a single Kontakt instance and route each to separate outputs/tracks in Sonar/CbB, but this causes you to have to have two tracks for each instrument; a MIDI track and a corresponding audio track, whereas the Simple Instrument option is a hybrid track that Sonar anyway can have Kontakt setup in which you can keep your soft synth MIDI and audio data in a single track and just use the Audio and MIDI tabs in Inspector to access their respective parameters, and to me that means less clutter as it's one less track per Kontakt instrument to.. keep track of. I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this because I just finished trying to make this happen directly and w/ workarounds, but is it really not possible to have multiple Simple Instrument audio/MIDI hybrid tracks from a single Kontakt instance that can each be routed to separate outputs the same way that the Kontakt 8 out and 16 out let you do? Am I the only one who would want this? I mean if you can have it for the first instrument that you load into a Kontakt instance why can't the other instruments in that same instance have their own Simple Instrument audio/MIDI hybrid tracks too? I found nothing by searching and I'm not even sure if it would be up to NI or Cakewalk to answer this so I posted in both places. Thank you

Instrument tracks aren't really a single track, they are actually 2 tracks: an audio track with a loaded VSTi, and a MIDI track that has it's output set to that VSTi.
 
All Sonar/CbB is doing is presenting the two tracks as one.
 
So you have two choices:
 
1. Use separate instrument tracks, and accept that you'll have a separate instance of Kontakt for each track; or
2. Use multiple MIDI tracks with a single Kontakt instance.
 
From what I gather, most people here use method 2.
 
I personally use method 1 and take the resource hit, as I find it much easier to switch out synths / freeze tracks this way.
 

You can always hide the MIDI (or audio) tracks that are taking up too much space.

msmcleod's reply sums it up very well. Simple instrument tracks trade versatility for convenience. They exist only because users griped that other DAWs had them, so SONAR should, too. CW said OK, here ya go. Most of us initially gave them a try and quickly returned to the old way of doing it.
 
Easiest way to deal with multi-timbral instruments is to create one or more track templates with predefined MIDI and audio tracks, optionally pre-routed to an aux track, and optionally pre-loaded with your favorite instruments. Once you've done that, it's just a couple clicks to drop in even a very complex setup. 
 
I do this for big, complicated instruments such as Superior Drummer and Kontakt. In the former case, the template contains a drum MIDI track with separate mono and stereo audio tracks for kick/snare/toms/OH/room, SD3 loaded up and everything pre-routed within the instrument.
 
If your track view is too cluttered, put MIDI and audio tracks into separate track folders. Since you're normally working on one or the other at any given time, you can just collapse the tracks you're not using at the moment.
 

Thanks for the input everyone. Lol yeah in an attempt to get multiple simple instrument tracks in a single kontakt instance I actually loaded a simple instrument track and then had sonar duplicate that track 4 times, which created a new kontakt instance for each duplication, then I deleted all but one of those kontakt instances w/o allowing the associated tracks to be deleted, so now here I was w/ several simple instrument tracks for a single kontakt instance and at first it seemed to have worked as I was gonna be all slick and go in and rout all those simple instrument tracks to their own audio outputs, but nope, no way to 😕. Still getting the hang of using sonar efficiently so thanks for the tips on track folders, templates and hiding tracks. I assume, though, if you hide a track, that your hardware controller/mixer, if one is used, will still be occupied w/ the hidden tracks taking up space on it(?)

"if you hide a track, that your hardware controller/mixer, if one is used, will still be occupied w/ the hidden tracks taking up space on it(?)"
 
Yes. It will be like the bass player hiding at the back of the stage but you can still hear him. Same with folders.