Sonar X1 X2 and AKAI EIE (WDM ASIO)

The AKAI EIE seems like a wonderful USB-attached appliance.  I was planning to use it to record 4 audio tracks at once in Sonar on my Dell Inspiron 15R (i7 CPU, lots of main memory, fast disk).
 
When I leave Sonar (X1 Studio, but I have other versions, too) driver mode set to WDM, the driver devices list shows both the EIE 1/2 and the EIE 3/4 audio devices.  These correspond to the 4 inputs (and also 4 outputs) of the AKAI EIE device.  (Since I'm not using the silver-front EIE PRO, the 4 channels are handled as two stereo pairs, but you can assign EIE 1/2 Left and EIE 1/2 Right separately, so this allows support for 4 mono channels, all together.)  However, the Sonar application continues to report that the EIE 1/2 and EIE 3/4 devices are in use by another application or not compatible with Sonar.  I've verified that the Sonar device settings are for 16 bits at a 44.1 sample rate, which is the limit of the AKAI EIE red-front device. 
 
The AKAI EIE red-front device is supposed to be compatible with USB class-compliant drivers.  That is, you don't need to install a special driver for Windows or its applications to use this device.  (The silver-front AKAI EIE PRO is advertised as using ASIO drivers, but I don't have that device.)
 
The common solution one finds on the internet when WDM and/or class-compliant (Windows native) drivers don't work is to install the ASIO4ALL driver in your Windows system, then change the Sonar driver mode to ASIO.  This presents two problems for me...
 
1.  First of all, installing ASIO4ALL version 2.10 totally corrupts several other drivers in my Dell Inspiron 15R laptop.  For example, my internet adapter gets disabled.  I've also noticed that ASIO4ALL forces the Microsoft Security Essentials to be disabled (probably in an effort to reduce latency?, unless the ASIO4ALL driver that comes on CD with the AKAI EIE device has been corrupted with a virus).  I'm pretty good with Windows computers, and I'm a computer analyst by trade.  After trying uninstalling and every other option, I was forced to recover/re-install my laptop OS to eliminate the driver corruption.  (I may try the ASIO4ALL version 2.11 beta 2 drivers, but I realize this may force me through another re-install of my laptop!)
 
2.  Despite the system problems that ASIO4ALL caused, I was able to start both Sonar X1 Studio (with updates through X1D) and Sonar X2 Essentials (tried at different times, following my laptop re-installs).  But both versions of Sonar still report the same audio driver error, indicating that the devices are not available (though allowing an override to try using them for configuration, even if they may not work in practice).  Also, whenever I have changed the Sonar device driver mode to ASIO, then I only see the one device EIE 1/2, and the other two channels supported by the EIE 3/4 device are not listed.  During one experiment with Sonar X2 Essentials, I found the bit depth was greyed out at 24 bits, so I couldn't change it to 16 bits, which is the limit of the EIE red-front device.   It's also interesting that when Sonar is set to ASIO mode, I am able to click the Advanced button and get access to the ASIO4ALL pop-up configuration window.  However, again, only the EIE 1/2 device appears.
 
As long as I can't install the ASIO4ALL drivers in my Windows 7 laptop, without corrupting other OS drivers, using ASIO seems like it is not an option for supporting the AKAI EIE device. 
 
Since the AKIA EIE device is supposed to be USB driver class compliant, and since its 4 channels appear correctly represented in Sonar (and in Windows Sound configuration) when I rely on the Windows native WDM drivers, it seems like the AKAI EIE device should be compatible with Sonar X1 and/or X2, any flavor. 
 
But I can't find a solution to get past the Sonar error that declares these devices are not available or not compatible.  It seems likely that the actual behavior of the AKAI EIE device is actually not compatible with the class-compliant WDM driver behavior that Sonar expects.
 
The AKAI EIE device is really nice.  It supports a great array of capabilities, ideal as an interface to a mobile recording setup with a hot laptop.  I wish I could get an AKAI engineer to talk with a Cakewalk programmer and get this incompatibility ironed out.  It's cool that there are many astute users posting helpful comments on this forum, but as a software developer myself, I realize there's just no substitute for getting the "level 3" support, that is, the original developers, involved when it comes to resolving technical incompatibilities.
 
Besides any advice from users having experience with the AKAI EIE and Sonar, if you happen to know who to talk to at Cakewalk, see if they'd be interested in tackling this problem.   As an experienced computer professional and also an experienced electronic musician, I'd be happy to support Cakewalk and/or AKAI with my equipment and my time...for the benefit of both companies.
 
Thanks!