So... MIDI would display as it does now, in clip format?  If so, then your request isn't so much a visual change in the track view but rather how notes themselves are handled?
 
For step 3, if I needed to move the end of bar 1 + bar 2 forward, I would select the clip(s), set the now time where the split point should be (at that first note), then press S.   This is assuming that the notes are contained in the same clip and need to be split. 
 

jpetersen
@azlsow3: I was responding to mudgel using a simplified conceptual model. I was trying to describe the software implementation, not the GUI.

Apart from the last sentence, my comment was about software internals. And I do not see any simplified conceptual in you response, "start/stop event pair" is exact practical implementation.
 

If you have the time, please try the following, you will understand the issue better than me describing with endless words. Imagine you have a song where the first 3 notes of the chorus are actually still inside the verse's bar, like "Blueberry Hill", if you know that song. To simulate this:
 
1) Create a midi track and press Alt+3 to open the PRV.
 
2) Place some notes in the first bar for the verse and at the end of the first bar add 3 notes going from low to high which are the "intro" to the chorus. Then add some notes in the second bar for the main part of the chorus.
 
Now imagine you want to rearrange the song so you now need to separate the verse and the chorus. Remember: the first 3 notes of the chorus are those at the end of the verse. How are you going to separate them into 2 clips?

1) split at second bar
2) in PRV, select and cut notes from the first bar which are from chorus
3) lock verse clip
4) paste notes, that creates new clip
5) merge this new clip with chorus
 
For better visual representation in the track view, put Chorus clip into another take lane. When editing overlapped clips in PRV, lock the one you do not want to modify.
 
Please note, I am not claiming current MIDI implementation in Sonar is perfect. I just think that "flying in the air" group of notes is not going to help.

One could use markers to indicate the boundaries of Verse and Chorus.  When the "clip", which is also how audio, loops etc, containers are referred to, all gets confusing select all the individual clips then bounce to clips, then select the bounced clip, Process > Spilt > At markers. you then have your individual units (clips) to arrange.

Just my furry thought, no program will ever be perfect for "you" or "me" because "we" did not right it.

Hoo boy. I cannot believe such a simple idea is turning out to be so difficult to explain.
Perhaps we simply cannot imagine any other way than how Sonar works now?
 
Here's what I am proposing, as briefly as possible:
 
1) Allow notes to be placed manually, or allow them to be played in, without any clips appearing automatically. Just notes.
2) Once that is done, let the user decide which notes to select and group together into clips.

Well, part of the issue for me (now) is that earlier there was this:
 
...but I still don't quite follow how these clip-less notes would actually display on screen?
 Exactly the same way they display now. No change necessary.
 
But above you then wrote: "Allow notes to be placed manually, or allow them to be played in, without any clips appearing. Just notes."
 

What I meant by "just as they do now" was, not as triangles or anything special.
But not in a clip.
Sorry, I could have expressed myself better.

Am I right in thinking that actually this can be summarised by saying that an option to create one clip per note is what you want?  Then SONAR doesn't have an "in clip"/"out of clip" dilemma and everything works as is now, but clips are simply created differently.

No. No enforced clip membership requirement at all.
A clip is just a convenience. It allows grouping notes and moving them together. That's all it is.
 
@KPerry: In your model, one would need to free a note from it's clip, then join it to another note's clip. An unnecessary extra step.  But sure, allow the user to select a single note and create a clip around it. But let the user decide. Don't enforce it.
 
Release notes from the tyrrany of clips! Freedom for all notes!

jpetersen
1) Allow notes to be placed manually, or allow them to be played in, without any clips appearing automatically. Just notes.
2) Once that is done, let the user decide which notes to select and group together into clips.

 
Surely that would be less convenient, i.e. having to create clips yourself every time rather than having them there by default.

Kev999
Surely that would be less convenient, i.e. having to create clips yourself every time rather than having them there by default.

What I am proposing is that you do NOT have to have clips every time. Only where you need one.
 
It is the *default* clips that are inconvenient.
Sonar does not know which notes are the Verse and which are the Chorus. It creates clips according to an algorithm.
The default clips are almost always unusable and first have to be fixed.
 
And Sonar puts EVERYTHING into a clip, even if you don't want one - like say for the Intro of a song.
So often I have a clip and I try figure out why, then I remember: Oh. Sonar made that one.
 
Let the user decide.
 
Here's one way this could work.
In the PRV: Lasso/Select some notes > Right mouse button menu > Choose "Group notes in a Clip".
 
Much quicker than unpicking what Sonar has done by default, then redoing it the way you want.