brundlefly
Yeah, I thought about that after I posted. There are ways to skin that cat, like pre-muting the section of the previous take going to replace, but it's not as transparent as just having punch recording work as the documentation suggests it will.
Sounds like a pain in the neck, too. What I do (this is for guitar overdubs) is mark my in and out and give it a try. I listen back to see if my marks are going to work (no pops or artifacts from the overwritten part, etc.). If necessary I move the in and/or out markers, although this is almost never necessary, and once those are correct I go for it. It's critical to listen to the first attempt so you can undo if needed.
I have to say I find the whole process tedious. I wish there were a faster way to mark the punch points, or a footswitch kind of thing to enter record. Sometimes on a single hard-to-play track I will have ten or more punches, and for each one I have to roll to the in and out spots, note the now time and type it into the in and out boxes. I know you can set it up by dragging in the timeline, but I don't find that a very precise way to do it.
But then I remember that I have 100x the capability of the big shot studios of the 1970s and 8os (my competition at the time), and I have to relax and get on with it.