Hi. Wow! Thank you all for your help, understanding, and suggestions! What a great community this is.
 
I will be trying out all of the suggestions here to see what fits my style and workflow
 
Thanks again,
 
 

Hey Charlie.
Take special note of what brundlefly has highlighted as important in the post above. When I first switched to Sonar from Cubase many years ago this is the thing  that I found 'counter-intuitive' as you say. Once you get your head around it, it makes good sense:)

Let's say you are copying a section of tracks 1-8  and you want to paste it to the end of tracks 1-8.  I recommend using Paste | Special (Ctrl+Alt+V) so you can set the starting track.  In this case, you would want to start at track 1, but Sonar may default somewhere else.  Also, you want to make sure Paste to One Track is NOT selected..
 
If you do the Paste Special and look at what's in the box, you may see what's wrong.
 
I have had a little trouble with Sonar being confused about what tracks I had selected/copied.  I have set up F2 to be Unselect All.  I always hit that first, then go in and Select and Copy so I am sure I am getting what I think I am getting.