Take lane edit behaviors

I have just spent the last 45 minutes searching this forum, yahoo, and you tube trying to find the answers here myself.  I have read pages of the sonar manual, and watched tutorials, read posts, and I got nothing.  Though I am sure our wonderful community here will have is solved in probably half that time...
 
   1) Can I set sonar to default to record in "sound on sound" mode?  I record live artists playing live drums, bass, guitars etc. and with every new project inevitably I forget to change that, we go to punch in, I hit play, I hit record, the playback cuts out they lose their spot and I yell SHIIIIIIIIIHT!   SORRY GUYS one second!  I switch modes and continue.   Drives me nuts.
 
2) Let's say for example the bassist is tracking...   his 1st take through the song is decent, but he feels he can do it better and is now warmed up.  So I mute take one (just in case I have to go back to it, it wasn't too bad) take 2 is actually better though I also want to keep take one and keep it muted (so if later in edit/mix I find issues in I haven't noticed right now, I have a safety net if I need it to rob parts from).  There are a couple things in take 2 we need to punch in for that weren't perfect, Cool No Problem!  I split the clips for take 2 and scroll back the bad parts and adjust the fades in and out approximately for now. (Which shows the grayed out/muted take one in track view lying in wait).  We finish punching in the fixes (take 3,4, & 5 to fix the 3 various parts that sucked) and now it's time to edit the fade in/out of the punches to make them blend right and make sure it's all gonna play nice together with no cross fade artifacts.  I do these fades on the spot, right then so if there are issues in performance, or dynamics between takes we can re-track right now if needed..   Now in track view I click on the clip we just punched in  (Take 3) to highlight it an adjust the fade in.  It keeps highlighting takes 3 (new punch) AND take 1 (was a full song take and is still lying there in the back ground).... Arrrrgggh....   Ok open take lanes right?   grab take 3 and go to adjust the fade in and IT'S TRYING TO AUTOMATICALLY CROSSFADE THE TAKES!! BETWEEN TAKE 3 (the punch) and TAKE ONE (the muted original take because it was still there and sonar can't just ignore it a leave it there) Auto crossfade in my experience has never ever sounded right.  ever. even if that was what I had wanted to do (and it's not).  That's not an algorithm thing, it is a musical, timing, and feel thing that I NEED TO CONTROL.  F.U. Mr. COMPUTER!   STOP IT!   I just want to go into takes lanes and be able to click on individual takes and split,move, drag, change fade times etc. on JUST THAT TAKE.  Without effecting any other lane in the track.  HOW do I set that up?  What setting am I missing here boys?   I can't possible be alone here. 
  The only work around I can ever find is to say crew it and delete take one to keep it from screwing you up.  Rollling the dice that you won't need it later.
  Maybe bass was a bad example here.  But it happens all the time when I want to keep all 12 takes of vocals and they all interact with each other when I try to edit them.  It's drives me up the wall.  HELP please.  I may snap... Thanks.