The last couple of updates with synth recording and now aux track routing and patch points have revolutionized Sonar for me. It's a HUGE workflow boost. I got so sick of traveling back and forth between the tracks and buses, whether in the track view or in the console view. If you're going to route all of your drums to a bus, what was the advantage in having that drum bus all the way behind the "curtain"? That separation had a negative psychological impact on my workflow, in that I felt disorganized and jumbled.
Now my track philosophy is thus:
Instead of grouping tracks to a bus I put all of those tracks in a folder and add an aux track to it, routing all of the tracks to the aux. All of the tracks are together in the folder.
If I'm using an effects return that's only for a group of tracks that I have grouped in a folder, I'll set up the return as an aux track. For instance, I might be using a room reverb or a delay that's only being used for drums. It goes in the drums folder instead of behind the curtain. Far more logical and organized.
If I'm using an effects return that's used widely across the whole project, I'll set up a bus for that as usual. It can stay behind the curtain, out of the way.
The old way of doing things seems so archaic already.
Synth recording is another major workflow improvement. It's now so much easier to print synth parts and draw a line under them. The old way of exporting or bouncing was a drag. I would be too lazy to do it, and as a result would twiddle with synth controls ad infinitum to the point where I was just chasing my tail. Now it's so easy to just record the synth, get rid of the MIDI track and turn the synth off so that I'm committed to it.
And yes, it's definitely snappier for me. I can feel a good performance boost in synth heavy projects.