Responding to item 1 above, I believe Melodyne supports doing pitch alteration - I used to to it in V-Vocal, BUT with V-Vocal you had to do it in little chunks at a time or it left artifacts or sometime just failed. I have not done it with Melodyne , but believe it can do the same function. The version that comes with Sonar X3 Producer Edition seems to only work on a single track at a time, so you would have to make multiple passes through the song to pitch-shift multiple tracks. You could download the 30-day Melodyne upgrade version, which operates on multiple tracks, to check it out.
Responding to item 3 above, you can quickly do this by selecting the audio track you with to place the imported audio into, then use the menu shortcut key combo: 'ALT+F, then M, then A', without the '. Once you do this really just a handful of times, it is quickly second-nature, if you do it fairly frequently. I don't know if you could assign all of that to a hot key, as I have not done any of that, but that might also be something you could look into. Keep in mind that functions that are things you do a hundred times a day, may not be used at all by the next guy. We all have our own recording styles and practices.
Responding to your item 4 above, the following snippet is from the Sonar documentation:
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[Track view] Tracks > Wipe Track(s) The Tracks > Wipe Track(s) command deletes track contents but leaves track properties intact. SONAR does not put wiped information on the Clipboard for later copying.
For more information about the Wipe Track(s) command, see
Erasing tracks."
This wipes out only the track data, but leaves the track and its setup.
Responding to item 5 above, Process Effect is quite different from inserting an effect. Process Effect has 2 options. The following text is from the Sonar documentation for Processing an Audio Effect:
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Apply Audio Effects dialog This dialog box gives you several options when applying audio effects: Delete the effects from the track effects bin. This option lets you either keep your effects patched in the selected track(s) after the effects have been applied, or delete the effect from the track(s). Fast bounce. This option is normally enabled but should be disabled if the track you are bouncing contains the External Insert plug-in (see External Insert plug-in). If you bounce audio that uses the External Insert plug-in, the bounce operation must be performed in real-time. Audible bounce. The Audible bounce option is only available when in real-time bounce mode (when Fast bounce is unchecked). When Audible bounce is unchecked, no audio output will be heard during the bounce process. When in real-time bounce mode (Fast bounce unchecked) and Audible bounce is enabled, you can hear the output of the mixdown." I hope any of the above is helpful to you - best of luck with all of it.
Bob Bone