If nobody brought up observations on improving the control of things in Preferences, it would not likely ever be considered for allocation of developer resources.
 
If good ideas arise in a thread such as this, it is more likely to have a shot at coming to fruition than if it was never discussed.  How likely it is that such changes would be considered is unknown, at the forum user level - but the thread is certainly a good topic to explore.
 
Bob Bone
 

 It took me five days to authorize Sonar 8.5 because that's how long it took me to figure out what "run as administrator" meant. I mean, my Windows User Account says I am the administrator, and I ran the programme, right?
 That was five days of aggravation. At least I wasn't on a forum somewhere complaining about how stupid I was.(at least not as worstcaseontario, anyways).

 Since you and me seem to be talking here, Bob,  so I'll ask you. My OP seems to read just fine with the first sentence just plain stricken. Would you advise me to edit it?

worstcaseontario
I am not a professional Word operator. I am a professional machine and forklift operator, and I am good at it.

 
Word is a complex and sophisticated program designed to do all kinds of page layout and formatting functions. I'm decent at Word. But if I sat down at a forklift and had to ride herd on machinery in a plant, I'd probably run over people and destroy pallets. I wouldn't even know where to look for documentation on how to run a forklift, what kind of fuel it needs, etc. 
 
This is why I mentioned PDFs and the internet. Last week I had to edit a manual in Adobe InDesign, a hellishly complex program I had never used before. Its UI is totally unlike Word or any other program I'd used. I couldn't figure out how to add bullets, so I typed "add bullets in InDesign" into Google and I had an answer in seconds. Every time I couldn't figure something out, either InDesign's help or the net came to the rescue.
 
Think of your Outline issue from the perspective of a Word developer. Word has dozens of font effects. A good designer will consider what is needed most often, and make it most accessible. So, Bold and Italic will be front and center. Next would be font color, underline, and strikethrough...and so on. Outlining would come fairly far down on the list, so it's placed accordingly. 
 
With today's complex programs, and that includes DAWs, I don't think any company can make a program that's truly "intuitive." If someone can't find a feature in a program, the design of the program won't always be able to solve that problem...but the documentation can, if it's done well. For example ideally, you would simply type "outline fonts" in Word's search field, and you'd get the answer you want. It should not be necessary to read documentation in your spare time, but it should be essential that you find what you need when you have a question. I think Sonar is very good in that respect, by the way...between the online documentation, the net, and this forum, it's pretty easy to find answers.  
 

If a Microsoft Word developer came up to me while I was making my sign and said "Oh, I see you are using or product, might you have any suggestions for features we might add?". I will say " Yeah, you could make it so you can out line the letters of the text".

 
Actually, they did! I don't know which version of Word you're using, but in one version (I don't use Word much, I'm into OpenOffice but have to use Word at Gibson) Microsoft added a feature they called "the ribbon" across the top of the page. It groups functions into categories and actually makes it quite easy to find things. For example, the ribbon's Home tab has all the "common stuff," and fonts options are in the upper left. When I needed to outline something in yellow, I had no idea how to do it. But the font section had a picture of an outlined letter...aha! I clicked on it, and there were a bunch of outlining functions, one of which outlined in yellow. I selected the text, clicked on the "outlined in yellow" button, and...problem solved.
 
The last time I owned Word was when Macs were available only in black and white, and as you can imagine, a lot has changed since then and now. But "the ribbon" has saved my butt time after time, I can find almost anything I need without having to deal with the documentation. 
 
The takeaway from the focus group wasn't that people were stupid, the takeaway was that the program needed better paths to find the info you needed. I think the ribbon was a good step in that direction, so at least they're trying.

 Of course I thank you for you reply Administrator Anderton.
For all I know, the version of office I use could be eighty years old. I don't care about office and when I am using office the internet available is completely locked down by an transnational military jet engine making concern. Of no use to me on the floor.
 If I REALLY need to have the text outlined, it's easy. Email the page to Steve, my supervisor, and ask him to figure it out, because the last time I got drawn into this kinda thing, the plant very nearly blew up. Steve will email it back, maybe with clear instruction that I can use for the next time. Steve is great.
 And while I take my part in causing the crisis, can we impose some kinda blanket ban on Word tips and tricks on the Sonar X3 forum? You are the guy to ask, right?
 And what do you think? Should I strike the first sentence of the body of my OP? I'm asking.

Have you ever looked at Ableton's preferences, Craig? Just off the top of my head those seem a lot easier to navigate. I agree that you can get a lot more specific in Sonar than what Ableton allows you to set but that could be an argument in favor of "advanced" buttons. Not to mention Ableton had never really failed to work right for me so perhaps there are some things it does automatically that just work.

My main issue is that there are so many different screens with settings that obviously belong together.

I like the idea of snapshots but that is, again, a solution for a problem that I'm not describing. It's like I'm saying I'm having trouble sleeping at night and you're saying "drink some coffee in the morning, it helps you wake up".

 Add to my last: If ANYONE failed to find the documentation on one of MY PITs (Powered Industrial Truck) instantly and effortlessly, I would consider it a massive personal and professional failure for myself.

Sanderxpander
Have you ever looked at Ableton's preferences, Craig?

Yes, I wrote the manual for Live 2.0 and still use Live 8 for my onstage act (Live 9 is on my desktop). When people ask me the difference between Live and Sonar, I say that Live is a musical instrument disguised as software, while Sonar is a recording studio disguised as software.
 
The preference are good, except that trying to figure out interfaces with multiple ins and outs can be extremely frustrating. For example if an interface considers its master outs 1 and 2, but has additional separate inputs labeled 1, 2, 3, 4 etc., then Live will consider 1, 2, 3, and 4 as 3, 4, 5, and 6. That's tripped me up several times when working with interfaces that have lots of I/O (e.g., ADAT interfaces and such).

@worstcaseontario - The thread has been a good one, and there is no point in editing your original post.  It was a fine question to raise.
 
Bob Bone
 

I agree, Craig, it would be nice if Live could report the names as specified by the audio driver like Sonar does. At the same time, I would like to specify in Sonar whether an input is available as stereo or as mono like I can in Ableton. My E-MU card is particularly annoying in this respect. But that's neither here nor there I guess.